LI  b  RARY 

OF   THE 

U  N  I  VERSITY 

or    ILLINOIS 

3\7.7 


a 


RtiBiiS  MtfliU  Smt 


The  Ohio  River 


A  Course  of  Empire 


By 

Archer  Butler  Hulbert 

Associate  Professor  of  American   History,  Marietta  College;   Secretary  of  the  Ohio  Valley 

Historical  Society  ;   Author  of  "  Historic  Highways  of  America,"  "  Washington 

and  the  West  ";  Editor  of  "  The  Crown  Collection  of  American  Maps" 


With  Maps  and  Illustrations 


G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

New   York    and  London 

Tlbe  1knicl?erbocher  press 

1906 


Copyright,  1906 

BY 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 


TTbe  imlclierbocfiet  press,  tkcvn  Both 


TO  MY  BROTHER 

HENRY 

THIS   VOLUME   IS   AFFECTIONATELY    DEDICATED 

iN   ACKNOWLEDGMENT   OF   A  NEVER- FAILING   DEVOTION 

AND   ENCOURAGEMENT 

THAT   HAS    BEEN    AS    PRECIOUS    AS   IT   EVER   WAS 

PATIENT   AND   FREE 


221299 


311,'? 


Note 


In  the  preparation  of  this  volume  the  author  has  been  aided 
especially  by  Theodore  Roosevelt's  The  Winning  of  the  West, 
Cist's  Miscellanies,  Charles  Moore's  The  Northwest  under  Three 
Flags,  Collins's  History  of  Kentucky,  Hinsdale's  Old  Northwest, 
Reuben  Gold  Thwaites's  On  the  Storied  Ohio,  Smith's  The  St. 
Clair  Papers,  Zadoc  Cramer's  The  Navigator,  and  Sherman 
Day's  Historical  Collections  of  Pennsylvania.  A  large  number 
of  other  works  will  be  found  mentioned  in  text  and  footnote 
indicating  the  author's  further  indebtedness  to  many  other 
writers. 

It  is  necessary  for  him  to  repeat  here  again  his  gratitude 
for  the  opportunity  of  a  complete  run  of  the  splendid  collection 
of  Americana  recently  presented  to  Marietta  College  by  Rodney 
M.  Stimson,  Esq.  Certain  scrap-books  in  this  collection  have 
afforded  him  much  material. 

A.  B.  H. 

Marietta,  Ohio, 
August  lo,  1906. 


Contents 


CHAPTER 


I.— 


II.- 
III.- 

IV.- 
V.- 

VI.- 

VII.- 

VIII.- 

IX.- 

X.- 

XI.- 

XII.- 

XIII.- 

XIV.- 

XV.- 


Introductory:       The    River,    its    Place    and 
Power  ...... 

-Where  France  and  England  Met     . 

-The  Old  French  War  in  the  West  . 

-One  of  the  Vanguard  of  the  Pioneers     . 

-The  "Monongahela  Country"  and  its  Metro 
POLIS     ....... 

-The  Ohio  in  the  Revolution    . 

-The  Fighting  Virginians 

-Fort  Washington  and  the  "Bloody  Way" 

-The  Reign  of  the  Rowdy  and  Outlaw 

-From  Keelboat  to  Schooner   . 

-From  Pittsburg  to  Louisville  in  1806 

-Blennerhassett  Island   .... 

-Where  Yankee  and  Virginian  Met 

When  the  Steamboat  was  King 

-The  Workshop  of  the  World 

Index  ........ 


PAGB 


15 

35 
57 

80 
112 

137 
162 

195 
226 

249 

280 
308 
330 
358 
371 


y 


vil 


List  of  Illustrations 


PAGE 

Suspension    Bridge    at    Wheeling,    West    Virginia. 

Frontispiece. 

Location  of  the  Works  of  the  Mound-Building 
Indians  in  Kentucky,  Showing  that  the  Favorite 
Sites  were  in  the  Interior,  away  from  the  Ohio 
River  ........        io 

Sun-dial  Used  AT  Fort  Duquesne        .  .  .  .12 

An  Ohio  River  Ice  Gorge  at  Evansville,  Indiana      .       16 

Celoron's  Leaden  Plate  Buried  at  the  Mouth  of  the 

Great  Kanawha  River  .....        22 

Bonnecamp's  Map  Showing  the  Course  of  the  Celoron 
Expedition  and  the  Location  of  the  Leaden 
Plates  along  the  Ohio  .....       26 

An  Early,  if  not  the  Earliest,  English  Map  of  the 
Ohio  River,  Made  for  the  Ohio  Company  about 

1752 32 

From  a  photograph   of   the    original  in  the  British  Public 

Record  Office. 

Plan  of  Fort  Pitt      .......       34 

Pumping  Station  on  the  Site  of  Dunbar's  Camp  on 

Braddock's    Road  ......       38 

Fort  Duquesne,  afterwards  Fort  Pitt  and  Pittsburg  .       42 
From  an  old  print. 

"Jumonville's  Grave"         ......       46 

The  Site  of  "Fort  Necessity"  in  Great  Meadows — 

A  Present-Day  View  on  Braddock's  Road    .  .       50 

ix 


Illustrations 


The  Earl  of  Chatham  ...... 

From  an  oil  painting  in  the  possession  of  the  Historical 
Society  of  Pennsylvania. 

Blockhouse  of  Fort  Pitt.     Built  in  1764 

Fort  Harmar,  about  1786  ..... 

Log  Rafts  AT  THE  Mouth  OF  THE  Big  Sandy    . 

The  Ravine  in  which  Washington's  Spies  Found  Jumon- 
ville's   Camp         ....... 

A  Banquet  in  the  Wilderness    ..... 

An  Early  Resident  of  Pittsburg         .... 
From  a  statue  by  T.  A.  Mills  in  the  Carnegie  Museum. 

Type  of  Blockhouse  and  Stockade      .... 
Redrawn  from  The  Red  Men  of  the  Ohio  Valley. 

Remains  of  Old  Milk-House  on  Washington's  Plan- 
tation ON  the  Youghiogheny  River 

A  Pioneer  Blockhouse  in  the  "Monongahela  Coun- 
try." The  Loop-holes  May  be  Seen  under  the 
Eaves  ....... 

The  Mound  at  Moundsville,  West  Virginia — An  Old 
Ford  on  the  Upper  Youghiogheny 

Fort  Boonesborough,  Kentucky 

View  of  Pittsburg      ...... 

From  General  CoUot's  Voyage  in  North  America  in  1796. 

Carnegie  Institute     ...... 

Court  House       .         .  .         . 

Phipps  Conservatory  .  .  .         . 

Logan  (Tah-Gah-Jute),  a  Cayuga  Chief 
From  an  old  print. 


PAGE 

54 


56 
60 
66 

70 
72 
76 

82 
86 


90 

96 

100 

104 

106 
108 
no 
114 


PAGE 

ii6 

T 

120 

122 

126 

.    128 

.    132 

•    134 

Illustrations  xi 


The  Battle  of  Point  Pleasant 

The  Cornstalk  Monument  on  the  Battle-field  at 
Point  Pleasant,  West  Virginia    . 

Fort  Henry,  Wheeling,  West  Virginia     . 

Wheeling,  West  Virginia,  from  the   Ohio   Hills 

McCullough's  Leap    ...... 

General  George  Rogers  Clark 

Fort  Sackville  in  Vincennes,  Indiana,  1779 
From  an  old  print. 

The  Cheat  River  AT  Historic  "Dunkard's  Bottom."    .     142 

The  Rifle,  Tomahawk,  Watch,  Pocket  Compass  and 
Sun-dial,  Hunting  Knife,  Powder  Horn,  Pistol, 
AND  Sword  of  General  George  Rogers  Clark, 
now  Owned  by  Colonel  R.  T.  Durrett,  Louisville, 
Kentucky       ........    146 

A   View  on  Cheat  River     ......      150 

Cumberland      Gap,      Looking      Northwest      toward 

Kentucky     ........     156 

From  a  photograph  by  John  Buchanan. 

Muskingum  Park,  Marietta,  Ohio,  where  General  St. 
Clair  was  Inaugurated  Governor  of  the  North- 
west Territory,  1788  .....      164 

RuFus  Putnam     ........     168 

Redrawn  from  an  old  print. 

Fort  Washington,  afterwards  Cincinnati  .  .172 

From  an  old  print. 

General  Arthur  St.   Clair,  First  Governor  of  the 

Territory  Northwest  of  the  River  Ohio     .  .     176 

The  Settlement  at  "The  Point"  at  Marietta,  Ohio, 

ABOUT  1790  .......     182 


xii  Illustrations 


PAGE 


The  River  Front  at  Cincinnati,  Ohio  .  .  .      i86 

Copyrighted  by  the  Kraemer  Art  Co. 

The  Cincinnati  Levee  and  Suspension  Bridge      .  .      190 

Copyrighted  by  the  Kraemer  Art  Co. 

Cincinnati    Southern    Railway    Bridge,    Cincinnati, 

Ohio     .........      192 

Copyrighted  by  the  Kraemer  Art  Co. 

Chesapeake   and   Ohio   Railway   Bridge,   Cincinnati, 

Ohio     .........      194 

Copyrighted  by  the  Kraemer  Art  Co. 

Cave-in-Rock,  Illinois         ......     196 

Marietta  College,  Marietta,  Ohio      ....     200 

A  United   States   Life-Saving   Station   on   the   Ohio 

River  ........      204 

Bridging  the  Ohio       .......     208 

Residence  of  George  Rogers  Clark  on  the  Indiana 

Shore,  opposite  Louisville    .....     214 
From  an  India-ink  Sketch  by  Voustamp. 

A  Case  where  the  Burden  of  Proof  Lies  with  the 

Affirmative  .  .  .  .  .  .  .220 

The  "Sprague,"  the  Largest  Ohio  River  Towboat      .      226 

Emigrant   Boat  in   which  the   Pioneers  Went  from 

Pittsburg  to  Kentucky         .....     230 
From  an  old  print. 

At  the  Mouth  of  the  Great  Kanawha  River      .  .     236 

Marietta,  Ohio,  from  Harmar  Hill     ....      238 

Admiral  Abraham  Whipple  .....      242 

The  Mound  in  "Mound  Cemetery"  at  Marietta,  Ohio, 
Showing  the  Grave  of  Admiral  Whipple  in  the 
Foreground  Surrounded  by  an  Iron  Railing      .     244 


Illustrations  xHi 

PAGE 

The  First  Floating  Mill  on  the  Ohio       .          .          .  248 
Redrawn  from  Hildreth's  Memoirs  of  the  Pioneer  Settlers  of 
Ohio. 

View  in  the  Ohio  Valley    ......  254 

From  Schoolcraft's  Indian  Tribes  of  America. 

Gallipolis,  Ohio           .......  264 

A  Map  Circulated  in  France  by  Agents  of  the  Scioto 

Company        ........  266 

The  "Falls  of  the  Ohio"  at  Louisville,  Kentucky       .  268 

From  an  oil  painting. 

Blockhouse  and  Log  Cabins  on  Corn  Island,  1778,  First 

Settlement  of  Louisville,  Kentucky  .          .          .  270 
From  a  ground-plan  by  George  R.  Clark. 

A  View  in  Louisville,  Kentucky          ....  272 

A  Lock  on  the  Portland  Canal,  Louisville,  Kentucky  276 

City  Hall,  Louisville,  Kentucky        ....  278 

Harman  Blennerhassett    ......  280 

From  a  miniature  taken  in  Europe  about  1 795. 

Mrs.  Blennerhassett           ......  282 

Blennerhassett's  "Isle  de  Beau"       ....  284 

The  Blennerhassett  Plantation          ....  288 
Redrawn  from  an  old  print. 

Blennerhassett  Furniture         .....  292 

Aaron  Burr         ........  294 

From  a  steel  engraving. 

The  Well  on  Blennerhassett's  Island      .            .          .  398 

Public  Buildings,  Wheeling,  West  Virginia        .          .  200 
The  Wharf  at  Evansville,  Indiana     ,          .          .          .310 

Interior  of  a  Modern  Ohio  River  Floating  Theatre    .  314 


XIV 


Illustrations 


An  Ohio  River  Floating  Theatre 

Water-Works  at  Louisville,  Kentucky 

The  Coal  Fleet  at  Pittsburg      .... 

Point  Pleasant,  West  Virginia 

Launching  a  Boat  at  Point  Pleasant,  West  Virginia 

Parkersburg,  West  Virginia,  from  "Fort  Boreman" 

The  Successors  of  the  Swift  Canoe    .  .         .         , 

The  Bell  OF  the  "City  OF  Cincinnati" 

An  Ohio  River  City  (Marietta)  at  Night    . 

Shooting  an  Oil  Well         ..... 

Steel  Mills  at  Benwood,  Ohio 

A  Line  of  Oil  Derricks        ..... 

Map  of  the  Ohio  River       ..... 


PAGE 
326 

334 
338 
342 
346 
35° 
354 
358 
362 
368 

372 
at  end 


The   Ohio   River 


The  Ohio  River 


Chapter  I 
Introductory:    The  River,  its  Place  and  Power 

FROM  whatever  standpoint  one  views  the  Ohio 
River  it  has  a  most  interesting  history;  but  of 
them  all  none  is  more  attractive  or  important 
than  that  from  w^hich  it  appears  as  a  strategic 
avenue  of  national  expansion.  "Westward  the  course 
of  empire  takes  its  way";  this  definition  of  the  Ohio 
River  very  nearly  meets  the  case.  It  was  a  course 
of  empire;  the  Great  Lakes  did  not  become  an  emi- 
gration route  until  the  steamboat  had  established  its 
reputation  in  the  third  decade  of  the  nineteenth 
centur>\  By  that  time  the  entire  eastern  half  of  the 
Mississippi  Basin  had  received  a  great  bulk  of  its 
population,  and  the  occupation  of  its  western  half 
was  merely  a  matter  of  time.  From  the  eastern  sea- 
board there  were  many  river  routes  into  the  interior; 
the  St.  John,  Penobscot,  Connecticut,  Hudson,  Del- 
aware, Potomac,  and  James  were  avenues  of  approach 
for  the  race  that  fell  heir  to  this  continent.  But  once 
across  the  Appalachian  range  there  was  but  one 
river  and  on  the  Ohio  and  its  tributaries  that  race 
spread  its   marvellous   conquest.     The   occupation  of 


2  The  Ohio  River 

the  Ohio  Basin  was  of  strategic  importance  because, 
of  necessity,  the  occupation  of  the  remainder  of  the 
continent  must  follow.  The  vital  question  was  not 
whether  the  Rocky  Mountains  could  be  crossed  and 
the  Pacific  Coast  secured  but,  rather,  could  the  Ap- 
palachian Mountains  be  crossed  and  the  eastern  half 
of  the  Mississippi  Basin  be  occupied.  The  Ohio 
River  was  one  strategic  course  of  empire  to  the  heart 
of  the  continent,  and  there  is  no  phase  of  its  history 
that  is  not  of  imperishable  significance. 

The  first  brave  English  adventurers  who  looked 
with  eager  eyes  upon  the  great  river  of  the  Middle 
West  learned  that  its  Indian  name  was  represented 
by  the  letters  Oyo,  and  it  has  since  been  known  as 
the  Ohio  River.  The  French,  who  came  in  advance 
of  the  English,  translated  the  Indian  name,  we  are 
told,  and  called  the  Ohio  La  Belle  Riviere,  "the  beau- 
tiful river." 

We  have,  however,  other  testimony  concerning 
the  name  that  cannot  well  be  overlooked.  It  is  that 
of  the  two  experienced  and  well-educated  Moravian 
missionaries,  Heckewelder  and  Zeisberger,  who  came 
into  the  trans-Allegheny  country  long  before  the  end 
of  the  eighteenth  century.  Upon  such  a  subject  as 
the  meaning  of  Ohio,  one  might  easily  hold  these 
men  to  be  final  authorities.  John  Heckewelder  affirms 
that  Oyo  never  could  have  been  correctly  translated 
"beautiful";  Zeisberger  adds  that  in  the  Onondaga 
dialect  of  the  Iroquois  tongue  there  was  a  word  oyoneri 
which  meant  "beautiful"  but  only  in  the  adverbial 
sense — something  that  was  done  "beautifully,"  or, 
as  we  say,  done  "well."  Mr.  Heckewelder,  knowing 
that  it  was  commonly  understood  that  the  French 


Introductory  3 

had  translated  Oyo  when  they  gave  the  name  La  Belle 
Riviere  to  the  Ohio,  took  occasion  to  study  the  matter 
carefully.  He  found  that  in  the  Miami  language  O'hui 
or  Ohi,  as  prefixes,  meant  "very";  for  instance,  Ohio- 
peek  meant  "very  white'';  Ohiopeekhanne  meant  "the 
white  foaming  river." 

The  Ohio  River  [he  writes],  being  In  many  places  wide  and 
deep  and  so  gentle  that  for  many  miles,  in  some  places,  no  current 
is  perceivable,  the  least  wind  blowing  up  the  river  covers  the 
surface  with  what  the  people  of  that  country  call  "white  caps"; 
and  I  have  myself  witnessed  that  for  days  together,  this  has 
been  the  case,  caused  by  southwesterly  winds  (which,  by  the 
way,  are  the  prevailing  winds  in  that  country),  so  that  we, 
navigating  the  canoes,  durst  not  venture  to  proceed,  as  these 
white  caps  would  have  filled  and  sunk  our  canoes  in  an  instant. 
Now,  in  such  cases,  when  the  river  could  not  be  navigated  with 
canoes,  nor  even  crossed  with  this  kind  of  craft — when  the  whole 
surface  of  the  water  presented  white  foaming  swells,  the  Indians 
would,  as  the  case  was  at  the  time,  say,  "  juh  Ohiopiechen,  Ohio- 
peek,  Ohiopeekhanne  " ;  and  when  they  supposed  the  water  very 
deep  they  would  say  "  Kitschi,  Ohiopeekhanne,"  which  means, 
"verily  this  is  a  deep  white  river.  " 

For  one,  I  like  the  interpretation  of  "Ohio"  as 
given  by  those  old  missionaries — ^the  ' '  River  of  Many 
White  Caps."  True,  there  is  a  splendid,  sweeping 
beauty  in  the  Ohio,  but  throughout  a  large  portion 
of  its  course  the  land  lies  low  on  either  bank,  and 
those  who  have  feasted  their  eyes  on  the  picturesque 
Hudson,  or  on  the  dashing  beauty  of  the  Saguenay, 
have  been  heard  to  call  in  question  the  judgment  of 
the  French  who  named  the  Ohio  La  Belle  Riviere. 
But  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  French  first  saw 
the  upper  waters  of  the  Ohio,  which  we  now  know  as 
the  glittering  Allegheny.  La  Belle  Riviere  included  the 
Ohio  and  the  Allegheny;  it  was  not  until  the  English 


4  The  Ohio  River 

had  reached  the  Ohio,  about  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  that  it  came  to  be  said  that  the  Allegheny 
and  Monongahela  formed  the  Ohio  at  Pittsburg.  To 
one  acquainted  with  the  roaring  Allegheny,  dancing 
down  through  the  New  York  and  Pennsylvania  hills, 
and  who  can  see  how  clear  the  waters  ran  in  the 
dense  green  of  the  ancient  forests — to  such  a  one  it 
is  not  difficult  to  see  why  the  French  called  it  La  Belle 
Riviere. 

As  I  write  there  sounds  over  and  above  the  noises 
of  a  busy  little  city  the  long  deep  booming  of  an  Ohio 
River  steamboat  ploughing  its  way  through  from  Cin- 
cinnati to  Pittsburg.  By  day  or  by  night,  the  hoarse 
baying  of  these  inland  greyhounds  is  singularly  charm- 
ing; the  echoes  roll  away  upon  the  Virginia  hlls  and 
then  come  thundering  back  upon  the  heights  on  the 
"  Indian  side, "  as  the  Ohio  shore  was  called  for  so  many 
critical  years.  And  as  the  mellow  notes  fade  away  far 
inland  it  occurs  to  me  that  if  judged  by  the  criterion, 
"handsome  is  as  handsome  does,"  there  is  hardly  a 
stream  of  water  in  America  to  compare  with  the 
Ohio  River.  Few  streams  ever  played  so  vital  a  part 
in  the  development  of  the  United  States.  Provi- 
dence meant  this  should  be  so.  With  a  lavish  hand 
these  waters  were  thrown  where  they  would  count 
magnificently  toward  the  building  of  a  new  republic. 
Three  important  conditions  were  answered:  first, 
a  generous  quantity  of  water  falls  every  year  within 
the  two  hundred  thousand  square  miles  drained  by 
the  Ohio  River  and  its  tributaries;  second,  a  liberal 
proportion  of  the  water  that  falls  flows  away;  third, 
the  water  passing  from  this  area  flows  in  the  right 
direction — ^westward. 


Introductory  5 

It  will  surprise  most  people  to  be  told  that  very 
nearly  one  fourth  of  all  the  water  that  reaches  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico  through  the  mouths  of  the  Mississippi 
comes  from  the  Ohio  River.  While  the  drainage  area 
of  the  Missouri  is  much  greater  than  that  of  the 
Ohio,  and  the  rainfall  in  that  area  is  proportionally 
larger,  yet  the  land  is  more  thirsty  there,  and  the 
result  is  that  a  smaller  proportion  of  the  water  that 
falls  flows  away.  Practically,  therefore,  the  Ohio 
is  a  much  greater  river  than  the  Missouri;  and,  for 
the  same  reason,  a  greater  river  than  the  Mississippi  I 
above  the  mouth  of  the  Missouri. 

This  splendid  supply  of  water  falling  in  the  Ohio 
Basin  flows  westward — a  fact  of  momentous  impor- 
tance in  the  destiny  of  America.  Edward  Everett 
said  in  Faneuil  Hall  in  1835,  when  advocating  in  a 
public  address  the  building  of  the  Boston  and  Albany 
Railway, 

The  destinies  of  the  country,  if  I  may  use  a  language  which 
sounds  rather  mystical,  but  which  every  one,  I  beheve,  under- 
stands,— the  destinies  of  the  country  run  east  and  west.  Inter- 
course between  the  mighty  interior  west  and  the  seacoast  is 
the  great  principle  of  our  commercial  prosperity  and  political 
strength. 

In  the  pages  that  follow  it  will  be  seen  how  the  Ohio 
reached  far  out  into  the  foothills  of  the  Alleghenies 
and  Cumberland  Mountains  beckoning  to  the  colonists 
on  the  Atlantic  seacoast;  with  outstretched  arms, 
spread  as  wude  apart  as  are  the  sources  of  the  Alle- 
gheny on  the  north  and  those  of  the  Tennessee  on  the 
south,  the  Ohio  River  called  through  the  dark  forests 
to  the  conquerers  of  the  West  to  come  to  their  own 
for  their  own  would  receive  them  gladly. 


6  The  Ohio  River 

No  sooner  was  the  call  obeyed  than  the  Ohio 
became  a  busy  river,  which  is  better,  after  all,  than 
a  beautiful  river.  Long  before  the  booming  note  of 
a  steamer's  whistle  echoed  through  these  western  hills 
was  heard  the  cry  of  the  pilot's  voice  in  the  prow  of 
the  long,  heavy  canoes;  back  and  forth  on  the  main 
trunk  of  the  Ohio  and  into  its  more  important  tribu- 
taries, the  Allegheny,  Monongahela,  Muskingum, 
Wabash,  Kanawha,  Kentucky,  Tennessee,  and  Cum- 
berland, sped  these  light  craft  carrying  the  earliest 
loads  of  freight — great  packs  of  furs  and  casks  of  salt 
and  provisions. 

The  history  of  the  Ohio  River  might  very  well  be 
divided  into  four  ages  and  the  first  would  be  the 
Canoe  Age  when  the  steersman's  voice  rang  clearly 
over  the  waters  which  flowed  swiftly  through  their 
winding  aisles  in  the  forests.  Then  the  rush  of  emi- 
gration into  the  West  relegated  the  canoe  to  the 
smaller  streams  when  the  keelboats  and  flatboats  and 
brigs  came — ^when  the  boatman's  magic  horn  drowned 
out  the  steersman's  voice  and  heralded  the  Flatboat 
Age. 

There  is  no  believing  the  stories  told  of  the  busy 
scenes  on  this  river  and  its  tributaries  while  it  was 
for  a  few  mad  years  hurrying  a  whole  vast  Nation 
into  the  Middle  West.  Sixty  and  seventy  flatboats 
have  been  seen  to  pass  a  given  point  (Bellville,  West 
Virginia,  for  instance)  in  a  single  day.  The  European 
statesman  who  prophesied  a  dismemberment  of  Amer- 
ica, soon  after  independence  was  secured,  never  saw 
this  fleet  of  homeseekers  hurrying  along  the  Ohio 
to  find  new  lands — ^whose  memories  of  the  homes 
they  had  left  in  the  East  were  as  precious  and  tender 


Introductory  7 

as  their  courage  was  noble  and  unfailing.  In  Europe 
mountains  had  almost  become  imperative  boundaries 
of  empire  ;  and  therefore  it  was  believed  that  the 
Alleghenies  would  eventually  divide  two  empires  in 
America.  The  reverse  of  this  was  true,  for  it  seems 
that  the  very  hardships  these  early  emigrants  endured 
on  those  bleak  mountains,  the  tears  the  pioneer 
women  shed,  the  suffering  the  men  and  boys  endured, 
made  them  all  love  the  old  homes  behind  them  better; 
made  it  impossible  for  them  to  harbor  a  thought 
of  political  alienation.  And  then,  at  the  foot  of 
the  mountains  lay  the  head-streams  of  the  Ohio;  the 
horns  of  boatmen  just  gone  before  them  could  be 
heard  echoing  along  the  hills — a,  siren  voice  calling 
them  down  the  broad  stream.  In  almost  a  moment's 
time  the  population  of  the  Ohio  Basin  sprang  from 
783,635  to  3,620,314  souls.  The  average  increase  of 
percentage  of  permanent  population  in  the  States  of 
the  Old  Northwest  in  the  Ohio  Valley  during  the  first 
five  decades  of  the  nineteenth  century  was  over  182 
per  decade.  Indiana's  population  between  18 10  and 
1820  increased  over  500  per  cent. — a  record  equalled 
only  three  times  in  all  the  phenomenal  "rushes"  of 
recent  years  into  the  Western  States.  Those  who 
prophesied  political  separation  of  this  great  people, 
many  of  whom  had  fought  in  the  armies  of  indepen- 
dence, never  heard  a  boatman's  horn  or  read  aright 
its  simple  and  powerfully  patriotic  message. 

But  the  boatman's  horn  died  away,  as  had  the 
echoes  of  the  rough  steersman's  cry,  and  the  booming 
note  of  the  steamboat's  whistle  heralded  the  Steam- 
boat Age.  As  both  the  voice  and  the  mellow  note 
of  the  horn  had  been  typical  of  their  Ages,  so  the 


8  The  Ohio  River 

shrill  cry  of  the  steam  whistle  is  typical  of  the 
third  period  of  Ohio  River  history.  The  Ohio  itself 
had  changed  little  in  all  these  years.  In  a  decade 
the  United  States  spent  almost  as  much  in  building 
the  Old  National  Road  from  the  Potomac  to  the  Ohio 
as  it  has  spent  on  Ohio  River  improvement  in  three 
quarters  of  a  century.  In  the  Canoe  Age  and  Flatboat 
Age  the  river  was  practically  useless  half  the  year; 
in  the  winter  it  was  ice-bound;  in  summer  it  ran  dry. 
Pioneers  unacquainted  with  the  Ohio  thought  their 
hardships  were  over  when  the  Alleghenies  had  been 
scaled.  Imagine  the  surprise  of  Ephraim  Cutler,  for 
instance,  who  emigrated  from  Killingly,  Connecti- 
cut, to  Marietta,  Ohio;  he  came  four  hundred  miles 
from  his  home  to  Williamsport,  Pennsylvania,  on  the 
Monongahela  River,  with  cart  and  oxen  in  fifty-nine 
days;  it  took  him  thirty-one  days  more  to  float  two 
hundred  miles  down-stream  to  Marietta.  As  late  as 
1866  it  was  estimated  that  there  were  two  hundred 
and  eighty-five  dangerous  obstructions  in  the  Ohio 
such  as  snags,  logs,  and  wrecked  boats.  Reefs  and 
bars  were  not  counted. 

Along  the  shores  a  vast  change  had  come  over  the 
face  of  the  wilderness  during  the  Flatboat  Age,  and 
the  steamboats  marked  not  only  the  rise  of  the  great 
industries  but  also  the  swift  advance  of  the  cities, 
Pittsburg ,  Cincinnati,  and  Louisville.  While  statistics 
on  the  subject  are  almost  inaccessible  yet  it  is  beyond 
question  that  until  the  Steamboat  Age  the  majority 
of  the  population  in  what  may  be  called  the  Ohio 
Valley  was  not  along  the  Ohio  River.  In  pioneer 
days  the  immediate  banks  of  the  river  were  not  suitable 
for    habitation.     This    was    true    in    prehistoric    and 


Introductory  9 

Indian  days.  Take  a  map  of  the  works  built  by  the 
Moundbuilding  Indians  and  it  is  clear  that  the  smaller 
tributaries  of  the  Ohio  River  were  the  favorite  lo- 
cations of  those  earliest  tribes.  It  is  on  the  Miami, 
Scioto,  and  Licking  rivers  in  Ohio  that  we  find  the 
chief  monuments  of  that  prehistoric  race.  A  great 
mound  at  Moundsville,  West  Virginia,  and  the  impres- 
sive works  at  Marietta  and  Portsmouth  are  the  only 
really  significant  monuments  on  the  banks  of  the 
Ohio,  while  on  the  lesser  interior  tributaries  we  find 
vast  quantities  of  these  remains. 

The  same  thing  seems  to  be  true  of  the  Indian 
nations  which  white  men  found  in  this  same  drainage 
area.  The  chief  seats  of  the  Delaware,  Shawanese, 
and  Miami  nations  were  not  on  the  Ohio  River, 
but  rather  on  the  Miami,  Scioto,  and  upper  Muskingum 
rivers.  Save  the  Shawanese  town  at  the  mouth  of 
the  Scioto  there  was  hardly  an  Indian  town  of  any 
prominence  on  the  Ohio  River  until  such  early  com- 
mercial villages  as  Logstown  near  Pittsburg  and 
Shawneetown  near  Portsmouth,  Ohio,  were  established ; 
and  the  Scioto  town  was  ruined  by  a  flood  and  entirely 
abandoned  for  a  safer  location  near  the  present  Chil- 
licothe,  Ohio.  A  pioneer  in  Ohio,  writing  of  the  lo- 
cation of  the  Ohio  Indians,  says:  "Their  habitations 
were  at  the  heads  of  the  principal  streams. "  The 
rule  was  quite  invariable  in  Ohio,  Indiana,  and  Illinois. 
There  were  practically  no  Indian  settlements  in 
Kentucky  or  western  Virginia;  the  meadow-land — 
Kcn-ta-ke — was  a  favorite  hunting-ground,  and  the 
Indians  never  resided  in  their  hunting-grounds. 

Many  of  the  reasons  which  inclined  the  earlier 
inhabitants  of  the   Ohio  Valley  influenced   the  first 


io  The  Ohio  River 

white  people  who  came  thither.  The  bottom-lands 
on  the  immediate  river  shore  were  rich  but  they 
were  comparatively  few  in  number,  and  the  flood-tides 
of  the  Ohio  throughout  the  centuries  made  the  river 
locations  unhealthy;  the  bottom-land  farms  were 
often  widely  separated  by  projecting  bluffs,  while  in 
the  equally  rich  interior  the  newly  cleared  farms 
were  closely  joined  and  the  community  of  interests 
thus  secured  by  the  proximity  of  numerous  pioneer 
farmers  gave  rise  to  villages  and  towns.  The  Ohio's 
being  the  boundary  line  of  counties  did  not  make  it 
a  central  site  for  county-seats.  Only  six  of  the  county- 
seats  of  the  fourteen  Ohio  River  counties  are  on  that 
river.  The  few  important  towns  that  sprang  up  on 
the  banks  of  the  Ohio  in  the  Canoe  and  Flatboat 
Ages  were  the  ports  of  embarkation  and  debarkation; 
of  the  former  class  Brownsville  and  Pittsburg  in 
Pennsylvania  and  Wheeling  in  western  Virginia  were 
the  most  prominent ;  while  of  the  latter  class  Cincinnati 
in  Ohio,  Maysville  and  Louisville  in  Kentucky,  Madi- 
son and  Evansville  in  Indiana,  and  Shawneetown  in 
Illinois  were  the  most  important. 

The  most  spectacular  change  that  came  with  the 
dawning  of  the  Steamboat  Age  was  the  swift  advance  of 
certain  of  these  entrepots  in  point  of  population — the 
crowning  the  beautiful  valley  with  three  imperial  cities 
— and  the  commercial  awakening  upon  and  under  the 
earth.  In  a  moment's  time  the  hail  of  the  steamer's 
whistle  was  answered  on  land  by  ten  thousand  cries 
of  triumph  from  as  many  brazen  throats — and  the 
note  of  the  boatman's  horn  was  as  far  lost  amid  the 
blue  hills,  measured  by  hopes  and  dreams,  as  the  for- 
gotten patroon's  cry  from  the  prow  of  the  heavy  canoe. 


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Introductory  1 1 

Between  the  cities,  towns  and  villages  sprang  up  in 
the  Steamboat  Age  to  live  and  thrive  until  the  steam- 
boat reached  and  passed  the  crest  of  its  popularity. 
The  steamboat  reigned  as  king  of  the  inland  waters 
from  1820  to  about  the  beginning  of  the  Civil  War  in 
i860,  as  the  flatboat  had  reigned  through  the  forty 
years  preceding  1820.  At  the  middle  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  palatial  steamers  left  Pittsburg,  Cin- 
cinnati, and  Louisville  every  day  in  the  week,  and 
an  unnumbered  list  of  smaller  lines  plied  between  the 
cities  and  lesser  towns.  With  the  building  of  what 
are  now  the  Pennsylvania,  Ohio  River,  Chesapeake 
and  Ohio,  Louisville  and  Nashville,  and  Baltimore 
and  Ohio  railways  the  steamboat  trade,  which  had 
grown  to  enormous  proportions,  quickly  sank  to  a 
comparatively  trifling  figure.  The  heavy  passenger 
trade  vanished  entirely;  the  freight  traffic  was  greatly 
diminished.  You  cannot  go  by  a  regular  steamboat 
to-day  from  Pittsburg  to  St.  Louis,  or  from  Pitts- 
burg to  Louisville,  or  from  Cincinnati  to  St.  Louis. 
In  a  trip  from  Pittsburg  to  St.  Louis  you  must 
change  boats  at  Cincinnati,  Louisville,  and  Cairo. 
Many  thriving  towns  which  were  points  of  national 
importance  half  a  century  ago  in  the  Steamboat  Age 
have  been  ignored  by  the  railways  and  lie  sleeping 
in  the  sun  and  in  the  snow  dreaming  only  of  the 
old  days  and  their  merry  scenes.  Other  towns,  like 
Maysville,  Kentucky,  have  retained  something  of 
their  old-time  position  in  the  whirl  of  modern  life. 

But  there  is  another  and  more  telling  form  in  which 
to  review  this  marvellous  river's  history  than  by  the 
varying  form  of  craft  which  plied  its  waters;  and 
this    is   by   picturing   typical   representatives    of    the 


12  The  Ohio  River 

several  classes  of  people  in  whose  lives  this  stream 
played  a  part.  Indeed  the  following  pages,  after 
those  necessarily  given  to  the  period  of  conquest,  will 
be  found  to  be  studies  of  men.  The  Ohio  River  is 
remarkable  in  this  respect,  the  tremendous  human 
interest  which  attaches  to  its  history.  No  river  of 
its  size  in  America  gave  a  livelihood  to  more  people 
in  a  century's  time;  many  which  approximate  or 
equal  the  Ohio  in  historic  importance,  as  the  Potomac, 
bear  no  comparison  with  it  on  the  score  of  the  per- 
sonal element. 

There  was,  first,  the  explorer,  the  brave  La  Salle, 
who  first  of  Europeans  saw  the  Ohio  Valley;  after 
him  comes  a  long  line  of  equally  brave,  picturesque 
men  down  to  George  Washington,  the  first  to  leave 
us  an  approximately  accurate  description  of  it.  In 
this  army  of  explorers  we  find  the  names  of  America's 
boldest  adventurers.  Gist,  Croghan,  Boone,  Washington, 
George  Rogers  Clark,  Kenton,  Lewis,  and  William 
Clark.  England  gave  America  no  great  explorers, 
no  successors  to  La  Salle,  Champlain,  Marquette, 
Brule,  and  Joliet.  The  above  named  list  of  fearless 
adventurers  were  bom  on  this  continent  and  bred  to 
lives  that  made  them  the  patriots  and  heroes  they 

were. 

And  after  the  explorers  of  the  Ohio  came  that 
swarthy,  rough  army  of  borderers  who  wrestled  with 
the  Indian  for  the  mastery.  In  this  list  we  must 
repeat  almost  every  name  previously  given  and  add 
many  more,  as  the  Poes,  Wetzells,  Girtys,  Crawford, 
Harmar,  St.  Clair,  "Mad  Anthony"  Wayne,  and 
William  Henry  Harrison. 

When  the  fighting  was  done  came  the  rush  of  the 


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Introductory  13 

pioneer  hosts  to  the  Ohio,  Dutch,  Irish,  Scotch,  and 
Quaker,  pious,  long-legged  Yankee,  roistering,  chiv- 
alrous Virginian,  rich  man,  poor  man,  beggar  man, 
and  thief.  This  era  calls  vainly  for  an  historian  to 
chronicle  its  real  story  of  commingled  generosity  and 
avarice,  rough  hospitality  and  murder — the  passionate 
lust  of  an  unbridled  multitude  leaping  into  a  wilderness. 
On  this  count  no  American  river  ever  can  approach 
the  Ohio;  on  no  other  river  in  the  world  has  such  a 
remarkable  social  movement  ever  spent  its  force. 

Upon  analyzation  this  multitude  naturally  falls 
into  many  distinct  classes  bringing  into  bold  relief 
a  score  of  personal  types  that  are  interesting:  there 
were  the  conscienceless  land-jobbers  selling  that  which 
they  did  not  own — a  large  class  scattered  widely  in 
the  Ohio  Valley;  there  were  the  hardy,  honest  sur- 
veyors who  played  a  useful  part  in  their  day;  there 
were  the  promoters  of  cities  and  towns  arguing  force- 
fully with  the  plat  of  town-lots  in  their  hands;  the 
varying  types  of  rivermen,  masters,  sailors,  oarsmen, 
packers,  roustabouts,  polers,  flatboatmen,  keelboatmen, 
rafters,  and  beachcombers,  form  as  unique  a  human 
element  as  can  be  found  in  all  western  history.  Mike 
Fink  is  as  distinct  a  character  as  any  Dickens  ever 
drew,  and  all  worthy  of  a  Dickens's  pen,  as  is  true 
of  Colonel  Plug,  Micajah  Harpe,  and  Wilson's  gang. 
Special  mention  must  be  made  of  the  flatboatmen, 
a  cursing  mob  of  men  who  bore  the  brunt  of  the  toil 
and  weariness  that  must  fall  on  some  shoulders  if  a 
civilization  was  to  be  born  in  a  day  in  a  new  land; 
slaving  at  the  "sweep"  or  at  the  "gouger"  through 
many  exhausting  hours,  the  very  frolic  of  these 
men  had  to  be  a  brutal  frolic.     As  a  consequence  the 


14  The  Ohio  River 

"bully"  of  the  valley  knew  how  to  fight  with  hands, 
knees,  elbows,  shoulders,  feet,  head,  and  teeth;  and, 
as  we  shall  see,  an  amazed  traveller,  when  asking 
how  to  tell  a  respectable  tavern  from  the  reverse 
was  advised  not  to  stop  with  a  landlord  who  was 
minus  a  nose  or  ear. 

In  more  recent  days  the  host  of  captains  and 
deckhands  and  the  other  hundred  odd  engages  in  the 
Steamboat  Age  form  the  last  of  these  interesting 
groups  of  Ohio  River  heroes. 


i 


Chapter  II 
Where  France  and  England  Met 


& 


WHO  can  describe  the  old  Ohio  as  it  lay 
beneath  the  sun  and  stars  a  century  and  a 
half  ago?  Who  of  us  can,  even  in  imagi- 
nation, picture  this  great  waterway  bound 
in  on  either  side  by  the  Black  Forest  of  America — a 
long,  shining  aisle  through  a  fair,  green  world  ?  This 
is  the  bright  side  of  the  picture,  the  forest  green, 
the  silvery  call  of  the  rapids,  the  lower  monotone  of 
the  sweeping  current.  The  poets  paint  such  scenes  and 
crown  their  fair  creation  with  an  Indian  maiden  sing- 
ing beside  her  work  in  a  gilded  canoe. 

But  such  pictures  are  not  inspired  by  a  careful 
study  of  our  pioneer  literature,  at  least  so  far  as  the 
Ohio  River  might  be  concerned.  The  dark  side  of 
the  picture  must  overshadow  the  light;  the  havoc  of 
the  floods  and  storms  removed  from  the  scene  much 
of  beauty,  and  the  bitter  conditions  of  life  in  those  dis- 
tant days  eliminated  almost  everything  of  joy.  We  are 
speaking  of  actual  conditions  that  existed  upon  the 
Ohio  before  it  was  possessed  by  a  white  race.  It  has 
already  been  made  plain  that  the  shores  of  the  river 
were  not  popular  as  the  sites  of  Indian  villages,  and  it 
can  easily  be  imagined  how  the  old-time  floods  affected 
the  river  shores ;    to-day,  when  much  of  the  river  bank 

15 


i6  The  Ohio  River 

is  comparatively  free  of  timber,  the  effects  of  the 
great  floods  are  seen  and  felt  for  a  long  period  after 
the  waters  have  receded;  what,  then,  was  the  case 
when  the  river  banks  and  bottoms  were  one  tangled 
mass  of  tree  and  vine  into  which  the  sun  could  never 
shine  save  in  winter  when  the  ground  was  frozen? 

Moreover  in  our  day  the  great  piles  of  driftwood 
and  the  wild  miscellaneous  plunder  of  the  floods  is 
rapidly  cleared  away  from  river  shore  and  bottom- 
land; fancy  the  day  when  the  deposit  of  the  floods 
along  the  Ohio  shores  had  continued  ceaselessly  for 
centuries — gigantic  mountains  of  flood-plunder  from  the 
upper  rivers  thrown  up  in  the  dark,  wet  forest  laby- 
rinth at  the  foot  of  the  great  curves  of  the  Ohio.  At 
some  points  these  great  reeking  monuments  to  the 
fury  of  the  waters  were  almost  terrifying  to  look 
upon,  and  no  one  but  a  collector  of  reptiles  would  ever 
climb  them.  When  these  shaggy  mountains  of  broken 
and  twisted  trees  accumulated  in  the  centre  of  a  river 
they  often  formed  a  treacherous  bridge  and  became 
of  use  to  the  early  travellers  who  came  that  way. 

When  General  Butler  came  to  the  lower  Ohio  to 
hold  a  treaty  with  the  Indians  he  was  advised  by 
friendly  natives  to  build  his  fort  far  back  on  the  hills 
as  the  floods  below  the  mouth  of  the  Wabash  often 
spread  over  bottom-lands  five  miles  in  width.  In 
the  winter  seasons  the  ice  jams  were  not  less  gigantic 
than  those  sometimes  formed  to-day;  and,  without 
modem  means  of  handling  these  dangerous  phenom- 
ena, they  spent  their  titanic  forces  along  the  Ohio 
shores  and  sometimes  for  miles  into  the  bottom-land 
interior.  The  forests,  however,  proved  a  buttress 
against  this  evil  and  held  in  check  vast  fields  of  ice 


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Where  France  and  Eng^land  Met  17 


&' 


which  piled  up  to  a  great  height  where  the  trees  held 
them  at  bay. 

The   continual   falling   of  forests   along  its  banks 
tended  to  make  either  shore  of  the  river  an  intricate 
network  of  water-soaked  trunks  and  branches.     The 
conditions  tended  to  preserve  for  a  very  long  while 
this  steadily  increasing  tangle  of  root  and  branch  and 
it  is  probable  that  the  pilot  of  a  frail  canoe  in  the; 
old  days  had  to  continue  to  look  with  a  keen  eye  for 
a  place  to  land  for  many  rods  and,  in  some  places, 
miles,  before  finding  a  suitable  landing  and  camping 
place.     The    more    prominent    of    these    obstructions 
were  called  "planters"  and  "sawyers"  by  the  pioneers. 
Planters  were  logs  which  were  imbedded  in  the  river 
bed   and   stuck   out   of  the   water   either   straight  up 
or  slanting  and  which  were   immovable.     They  were 
the  most  dangerous  obstacles  in  pioneer  river  navi- 
gation.    Sawyers  w^ere  trunks  or  limbs  of  trees  pro- 
truding from  the  water  which  were  kept  in  motion 
by  the  swinging  tides  of  the  river ;  as  the  name  implies, 
they  kept   "sawing."     These   usually   pointed  down- 
stream and  boats  could  often  be  shoved  over  if  they 
happened   to  run  foul  of   them.     Bars,  snags,  rocks, 
and  sunken  logs  were  other  dangers,   and  an  early 
Ohio  River  pilot  in  canoe  or  flatboat  had  to  possess 
sharp  ears  as  well  as  sharp  eyes;   for  it  was  a  legend 
among  old  rivermen  that  boats  floated  faster  in  the 
night  than  in  the  daytime   (for  the  same  reason,  no 
doubt,    that  com  grows  faster  at  night  than  in  the 
day!)  and  the  sound  of  the  water  "riffling"  around 
the  rocks,    "planters,"  and  "sawyers"    was   the  one 
and  only  warning  that  the  steersman  had  of  danger. 
Such  must  have  been  some  aspects  of  the  "River 


1 8  The  Ohio  River 

of  Many  White  Caps"  when  the  eyes  of  the  first  adven- 
turous Europeans  looked  through  the  leafy  forests 
upon  it.  Some  of  these  early  pilgrims  left  records  of 
their  experiences  which  have  come  down  to  us,  and 
though  in  the  main  they  are  little  more  than  records 
of  the  temperature  of  the  water  and  the  temper  of  the 
Indian,  yet  they  are  our  earliest  accounts  and  as  such 
are  precious  memorials  of  the  dawning  of  civilization 
in  the  eastern  half  of  the  Mississippi  Basin. 

There  is  no  question  but  that  the  brave  La  Salle 
discovered  La  Belle  Riviere  of  New  France  (the  Alle- 
gheny and  Ohio)  about  1670.  He  left  no  record  that 
confirms  this  but  his  later  references  to  the  region  of 
the  Ohio  are  almost  conclusive  evidence  that  he  de- 
scended that  river  probably  to  "  the  Falls, "  as  the  rapids 
of  Louisville  have  been  known  since  the  dawn  of 
history  in  the  West.  It  was  in  the  last  year  of  the 
first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  that  the  first  Euro- 
pean to  leave  record  of  it  sailed  the  waters  of  the 
Ohio.  This  was  Celoron  de  Bienville,  a  chevalier  of 
the  military  order  of  St.  Louis  commanding  a  de- 
tachment sent  to  La  Belle  Riviere  by  Marquis  de  la 
Galissoniere,  commander  of  all  New  France  and  the 
country  of  Louisiana.  The  story  of  the  advance  from 
Montreal  of  this  picturesque  company  of  men,  com- 
prising "a  captain,  eight  subaltern  officers,  six  cadets, 
an  armorer,  twenty  men  of  the  troops,  one  hundred 
and  eighty  Canadians,  and  nearly  thirty  savages — 
equal  number  of  Iroquois  and  Abenakes, "  is  the 
very  epitome  of  romance. 

As  is  well  known,  both  England  and  France  claimed 
the  Mississippi  Basin,  the  former  through  the  disco ver- 
eries  of  Cabot  and  the  latter  through  the  exploration 


Where  France  and  Eno^land  Met  19 


£>' 


of  La  Salle.  Cabot  discovered  the  American  coast 
line  and  claimed  possession  of  all  the  land  in  the  interior 
for  his  English  King.  La  Salle  in  1682  buried  a  leaden 
plate  at  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi,  which  claimed 
for  his  Bourbon  King  all  the  land  drained  by  the  waters 
which  there  passed  into  the  sea!  The  French,  estab- 
lished on  the  St.  Lawrence,  had  found  their  way  west- 
w^ard  to  the  Great  Lakes  by  the  Ottawa  River,  the 
St.  Lawrence  being  controlled  by  the  Iroquois  or  Six 
Nations  whose  enmity  was  recklessly  incurred  at  an 
early  date.  Reaching  the  Great  Lakes  the  French 
voyageurs,  traders,  and  daring  missionaries  pressed 
on  to  the  Mississippi  by  way  of  the  Illinois,  Wabash, 
and  Wisconsin  rivers  and  formed  a  connection  finally 
with  the  Louisiana  colony  and  its  capital,  New  Orleans. 
Thus  the  region  watered  by  the  Ottawa  River,  Lakes 
Huron,  Michigan,  and  Superior,  and  all  the  tributaries 
of  the  upper  Mississippi,  including  the  Wabash  and 
lower  Ohio,  came  under  the  influence  of  the  King  of 
France  and  contributed  of  its  vast  wealth  of  fur  to 
his  coffers,  filtering  through  the  fingers  of  peculating 
agents  and  governors. 

The  English  on  the  Atlantic  seaboard  were  slow 
in  reaching  out  to  the  rich  West;  their  love  of  home- 
building  was  greater  than  their  love  of  adventure  for 
gain.  Throughout  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth 
century  there  was  continual  fighting  between  the 
French  on  the  St.  Lawrence  and  the  colonists  in  New 
England,  and  as  the  French  began  to  ascend  the 
St.  Lawrence  and  occupy  Lake  Ontario  the  Six  Nations 
proved  valuable  to  the  English  in  defending  the  prov- 
ince of  New  York  from  their  encroachments.  To  the 
westward  of  New  York,  Pennsylvania,  and  Virginia, 


20  The  Ohio  River 

the  English,  who,  by  1750,  began  sifting  up  the  rivers 
into  the  Alleghenies,  found  no  French.  At  about  this 
date,  it  was  revealed,  as  in  a  dream,  to  both  English 
and  French  governors,  that  the  garden  spot  of  the 
new  continent  lay  just  beyond  the  Alleghenies,  be- 
tween the  Great  Lakes  and  the  Blue  Ridge,  stretching 
westward  to  the  Mississippi.  This  was  the  Ohio 
Valley;  the  colonists  knew  almost  nothing  of  it;  the 
French  knew  little  more  than  the  one  fact  that  La  Salle 
had  been  there  and  by  his  plate  buried  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Mississippi  had  formally  established  the  French 
claim.  Because  of  having  alienated  the  Six  Nations, 
who  were  masters  of  all  the  territory  between  the 
Hudson  and  the  Wabash  and  as  far  south  as  the 
Tennessee  and  Cumberland  rivers,  the  French  had 
gone  to  the  discovery  of  the  West  by  way  of  the  Ottawa, 
and  therefore  knew  almost  nothing  of  Lake  Ontario, 
the  Niagara  River,  and  Lake  Erie — and  this  precious 
Ohio  Basin  below  it. 

In  1747  an  enterprising  company  of  Virginia 
gentlemen  conceived  the  plan  of  securing  from  the  King 
of  England  a  grant  of  land  on  the  Ohio  River.  The 
purpose  of  these  men  is  nowhere  more  clearly  outlined 
than  in  the  records  of  the  Committee  of  Council  of  the 
Lords  of  Trade: 

Whereas  His  Majesty  was  pleased  by  His  Order  in  Cotincil 
of  the  nth  of  last  month  to  referr  unto  this  Committee  the 
humble  Petition  of  John  Hanbury  of  London  Merchant  in 
behalf  of  himself  and  of  Thomas  Lee  Esq.  a  Member  of  His 
Majesty's  Council  and  one  of  the  Judges  of  the  Supreme  Court 
of  Judicature  in  His  Majesty's  Colony  of  Virginia,  Thomas  Nel- 
son, Esqf^  also  a  Member  of  His  Majesty's  Council  in  Virginia, 
Colonel  Cressup,  Colonel  WilHam  Thornton,  William  Nimmo, 
Daniel  Cressap,  John  Carlisle,  Lawrence  Washington,  Augustus 


Where  France  and  England  Met  21 

Washington,  George  Fairfax,  Jacob  Gyles,  Nathaniel  Chapman 
and  James  Woodrop,  Esq'"^'^,  all  of  His  Majesty's  Colony  of 
Virginia  and  others  their  Associates  for  settling  the  Countrys 
upon  the  Ohio  and  extending  the  British  Trade  beyond  the 
Mountains  on  the  Western  confines  of  Virginia  humbly  praying 
...  to  grant  to  them  ...  a  Tract  of  500,000  acres  of  land 
betwixt  Romanettos  and  Buffalo's  Creek  on  the  south  side  of 
the  River  AHgane  [Allegheny]  otherwise  the  Ohio  and  betwixt 
the  two  creeks  and  the  Yellow  Creek  on  the  north  side  of  the 
River  or  in  such  parts  of  the  West  of  the  said  Mountains  as  shall 
be  adjudged  most  proper  by  the  Petitioners  ...  on  condition 
of  the  Petitioners  Seating  at  their  proper  expense  a  hundred 
Familys  upon  the  lands  in  seven  years  ,  .  .  The  Lords  of 
the  Committee  this  day  took  the  said  Petition  into  their  con- 
sideration and  are  hereby  pleased  to  referr  the  same  to  the 
Lords  Commissioners  for  Trade  and  Plantations  to  consider 
thereof  and  Report  their  Opinion  thereupon  to  this  Committee 
[the  tributaries]  of  Mississippi  and  those  of  Potomac  are  only 
separated  by  one  small  Ridge  of  Mountains,  easily  passable  by 
Land  Carriage,  so  that  by  the  Convenience  of  Navigation  of  the 
Potomac  and  a  short  land  carriage  from  thence  to  the  West 
of  the  Mountains  and  to  the  Branch  of  the  Ohio  and  the  Lake 
Erie  British  Goods  may  be  carried  at  little  expense  and  afforded 
reasonably  to  the  Indians  in  those  parts. 

It  is  difficult  to  estimate  how  far  this  was  a  genuine 
business  adventure  and  how  far  it  was  a  piece  of 
political  manoeuvring;  it  is  sure  that  acquiescence  to 
the  request  could  fairly  be  expected  from  England 
because  the  settlement  would  be  a  significant  test- 
case  in  the  controversy  as  to  whether  France  or  Eng- 
land possessed  the  West. 

The  almost  immediate  departure  from  Montreal 
of  that  body  of  men  under  C^loron  was  the  electrifying 
answer  the  Governor  of  Canada  made  to  this  announce- 
ment of  a  grant  of  land  in  the  Ohio  Valley  to  Virginia 
promoters    by    England's    King!     C61oron's    advance 


22  The  Ohio  River 

into  the  great  green  valley  of  the  West  is  like  the 
heavy  stalking  of  mediaeval  soldiery  into  the  pages 
of  modem  history;  and  though  the  Canadians  and 
Indians  who  crowded  the  twenty-three  swift  canoes 
give  a  modem  light  to  this  picture  of  the  Celoron 
expedition,  yet  as  a  whole  it  is  an  old-time  picture, 
as  though  woven  in  fresh,  modem  green  upon  an 
ancient  bit  of  tapestry.  You  can  see  the  swirl  of  the 
waters  above  the  buried  paddles,  you  can  see  the 
bright  flash  of  sunlight  from  the  blades  as  they  rise 
with  the  steady  rhythm  of  the  paddlers;  slowly  the 
procession  ascends  the  St.  Lawrence;  slowly  the  long 
portages  around  the  tumbling  rapids  are  made.  Here 
at  the  carrying-places  our  attention  is  soon  attracted 
to  the  peculiar  contents  of  one  of  the  canoes;  a  crate 
or  box,  which  is  extraordinarily  heavy  for  its  small 
size,  taxes  the  energies  of  two  stalwart  men  at  each  of 
the  portages ;  and  here  lies  a  secret  meaning  of  Celoron' s 
adventure,  which  classes  it  unalterably  with  an  ancient 
pageant  or  mediseval  mummery.  The  crate  contains 
six  or  more  leaden  plates,  about  eleven  inches  long, 
seven  inches  wide,  and  an  eighth  of  an  inch  in  thickness, 
which  are  to  be  deposited  at  the  mouths  of  all  im- 
portant rivers  that  empty  into  the  Ohio,  in  order 
to  reassert  French  sovereignty  in  that  valley  and  all 
its  tributary  valleys!  If  La  Salle's  plate  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Mississippi  was  not  sufficient,  the  whole 
Ohio  Valley,  if  necessary,  would  be  filled  with  these 
proofs  of  French  possession.  And  if  leaden  plates 
would  not  answer  to  hold  the  Ohio,  leaden  bullets 
should! 

Celoron  left  Montreal  (La  Chine)  June  15,   1749; 
on  the  27th  he  reached  Fort  Frontenac  and  on  July 


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Where  France  and  England  Met  23 

6th  he  reached  Fort  Niagara.  Leaving  Niagara  on 
the  15th  Celoron  cruised  along  the  southern  shore  of 
Lake  Erie — an  unknown  shore  (for  reasons  before 
explained)  to  the  race  which  had  sent  its  voyageurs 
from  end  to  end  of  the  Mississippi  and  many  of  its 
tributaries.  "I  arrived  at  noon  at  the  portage  of 
Chatakouin, "  wrote  Celoron  in  his  Journal.  Here, 
at  what  is  now  Portland,  New  York,  the  party,  bag 
and  baggage,  crossed  the  taxing  portage  to  Lake 
Chatauqua,  and  reaching  Conewango  Creek  from 
there,  the  detachment  sailed  into  the  Ohio  River  at 
noon,  July  29th.     Celoron  said  in  his  Journal: 

29th,  I  entered  at  noon  into  the  Belle  Riviere  [Ohio].  I 
buried  a  lead  plate,  on  which  is  engraved  the  possession  taken, 
in  the  name  of  the  King,  of  this  river  and  of  all  those  which  fall 
into  it.  I  also  attached  to  a  tree  the  arms  of  the  King,  engraved 
on  a  sheet  of  white  iron,  and  over  all  I  drew  up  a  Proces  Verbal, 
which  the  officers  and  myself  signed. 

Copy  of  the  Proces  Verbal,  of  the  position  of  the  lead  plate 
and  the  arms  of  the  King,  placed  at  the  entrance  of  the  Belle 
Riviere  [Ohio]  with  the  inscription: 

"The  year  1749,  Celoron,  Chevalier  of  the  Order  Royal  and 
Military  of  St.  Louis,  Captain  Commanding  a  Detachment  sent 
by  the  orders  of  Marquis  de  GalHssonniere,  Commander  General 
of  Canada  on  the  Belle  Riviere,  otherwise  called  the  Ohio, 
accompanied  by  the  principal  officers  of  our  detachments,  have 
buried,  at  the  foot  of  a  red  oak  on  the  south  bank  of  the  river 
Ohio  [Oyo]  and  of  the  Chenangon  and  at  40°  51'  23*  a  lead  plate 
with  inscription: 

"  'In  the  year  1749  of  the  reign  of  Louis  XV.,  King  of 
France,  I,  Celoron,  Commander  of  the  Detachment  sent  by  the 
Marquis  de  la  Gallissonniere,  Commanding  General  of  New 
France,  to  re-establish  tranquillity  in  some  villages  of  these 
cantons,  we  have  buried  this  plate,  at  the  confluence  of  the 
Ohio  and  Kanaragon  Conewango  Creek,  July  rjgth,  as  a  monu- 
ment of  the  renewal  of  possession  which  we  have  taken  of  the 


24  The  Ohio  River 

said  river  Ohio,  and  of  all  those  that  therein  empty;  and  of  all 
the  land  on  both  sides  to  the  source  of  said  river,  as  they  were 
enjoyed,  or  should  have  been  enjoyed  by  the  preceding  Kings 
of  France,  and  that  they  are  maintained  by  the  arms  and  by 
treaties,  and  especially  by  those  of  Reswick,  d'Utrecht  and  of 
Aix  la  Chapelle;  we  have  also  affixed  in  the  same  place  to  a 
tree  the  arms  of  the  King,  in  testimony  of  which  we  have  drawn 
up  and  signed  the  present  Proces  Verbal. 

"Done    at  the   entrance  of  Belle  Riviere,  July   29th,    1749. 
All  the  officers  have  signed. ' ' 

From  this  point  where  the  first  plate  was  buried 
near  Warren,  Pennsylvania,  this  phantom  party  passed 
down  the  Allegheny  and  Ohio  burying  their  leaden 
plates  and  nailing  to  the  trees  their  sheets  of  "white 
iron,"  or  tin.  At  each  place  selected  the  same  pom- 
pous formality  was  strictly  observed,  and  plates  were 
buried  near  the  mouths  of  Conewango  Creek  and 
French  Creek  in  Pennsylvania,  Wheeling  Creek  and 
Great  Kanawha  River  in  West  Virginia,  and  the  Mus- 
kingum and  Great  Miami  rivers  in  Ohio.  Three  of 
these  have  been  recovered. 

But  Celoron  had  another  mission  on  the  Ohio 
quite  as  important  as  burying  these  "monuments," 
and  that  was  to  see  the  Indians  of  the  valley,  and  ally 
them  to  French  interests  as  against  the  traders  of  the 
English  colonies.  The  Senecas,  who  kept  well  the 
western  door  of  the  Long  House  of  the  Six  Nations, 
were  found  on  the  Allegheny,  as  well  as  Loups  or 
Wolves;  this  was  the  French  name  of  the  Delawares, 
who  had  lately  come  from  the  East  to  settle  (by  per- 
mission of  the  Six  Nations)  on  and  between  the  Alle- 
gheny and  Muskingum  rivers. 

This  is  what   determined  me   [said   the   address   from   the 
Governor  of  New  France  to  the  Ohio  Indians]  to  send  to  you 


Where  France  and  England  Met  25 

Mr.  Celoron,  to  inform  you  of  my  intentions,  which  are,  that  I 
will  not  suffer  the  English  on  my  land;  and  I  invite  you,  if  you 
are  my  true  children,  to  not  receive  them  any  more  in  your 
villages.  I  forbid  them,  by  this  belt,  the  commerce  which  they 
have  established  lately  in  this  part  of  the  land,  and  announce  to 
you  that  I  will  no  longer  suffer  it.  ...  I  will  furnish  you 
with  traders  in  abundance,  if  you  wish  for  them.  I  will  even 
place  here  officers,  if  that  will  please  you,  to  govern  you  and 
give  you  the  good  spirits,  so  that  you  will  only  work  in  good 
affairs.  .  .  .  Give  serious  attention,  my  children,  to  the  words 
which  I  send  you;  listen  well,  follow  it,  it  is  the  way  to  see 
always  in  your  villages  a  haven  beautiful  and  serene.  I  expect 
from  you  a  reply  worthy  of  my  true  children.  You  see  the 
marks  to  be  respected  which  I  have  attached  along  La  Belle 
Riviere,  which  will  prove  to  the  English  that  this  land  belongs 
to  me  and  that  they  cannot  come  here  without  exposing  them- 
selves to  be  chased  away.  I  wish  for  this  time  to  treat  them 
with  kindness  and  warn  them;  if  they  are  wise  they  will 
profit  by  my  advice. 

Though  some  of  the  awed  denizens  of  the  Allegheny 
forests  gave  assurances  of  loyalty  to  the  French  and 
faithfully  kept  them,  Celoron  found,  as  he  passed 
southward,  a  warm  sentiment  for  the  English.  The 
more  important  stops  were  made  near  the  present 
Franklin  [Venango]  and  Kittaning  [Attique],  Penn- 
sylvania, and  in  the  suburbs  of  Pittsburg  [Shannopin's 
Town].  At  certain  points  Celoron  found  English 
traders  from  beyond  the  mountains  and  ordered  them 
home  sharply,  with  letters  to  their  provincial  governors 
protesting  that  no  English  trader  had  any  right  in  the 
Ohio  Valley.  But  Celoron' s  troubles  were  not  con- 
fined to  outsiders;  the  Indians  of  his  own  party  be- 
came disaffected  and  some  of  them  deserted  at  the 
Indian  town,  Logs  town,  a  little  below  the  present  site 
of  Pittsburg.     These  while  returning  are  said  to  have 


26  The  Ohio  River 

dug  up  the  first  plate  C^loron  buried  and  to  have 
forwarded  it  to  the  Governor  of  New  York.  Thus  in 
two  ways,  at  least,  the  English  learned  of  C^loron's 
mission  on  the  Ohio. 

Overlooking  for  a  moment  the  deep  political  sig- 
nificance of  this  strange  flotilla,  what  did  these  French 
think  of  this  almost  unknown  river?  Their  records 
are  the  first  authoritative  accounts  we  have  of  the 
old  Ohio,  clogged  with  "saw>^ers"  and  "planters," 
its  banks  a  network  of  bristling  trunks  and  branches, 
its  forest  bottom-lands  covered  with  the  plunder  of 
the  floods.  Of  all  this  scarce  a  mention  is  made. 
Celoron's  Journal  notes  only  the  sailings  and  encamp- 
ments, the  speeches  to  the  various  Indian  villages 
and  their  replies.  Father  Bonnecamp,  the  priest, 
also  kept  a  record  of  the  expedition,  and  while  he  does 
not  pay  full  attention  to  the  political  aspects  of  the 
mission,  he  gives  us  only  the  smallest  glimpse  into  the 
great  primeval  valley.  This  is  of  course  explained 
by  the  fact  that  the  wildness  of  the  virgin  Ohio  was 
extremely  commonplace  to  these  voyageurs  of  a  thou- 
sand forest  miles.  The  journey  thither  had  been 
severe  and  Bonnecamp  pathetically  writes,  "Finally, 
overcome  with  weariness,  and  almost  despairing  of 
seeing  the  Beautiful  River,  we  entered  it  on  the  29th 
at  noon."  He  adds  that  the  Indian  village  on  the 
site  of  the  present  Warren,  Pennsylvania,  contained 
"twelve  or  thirteen  cabins ;  it  is  called  Kananouangon.  " 
The  Allegheny  here  is  described  as  lying  "between  two 
chains  of  mountams";  with  only  such  hints  as  to  the 
river  itself  and  with  a  snake  story  thrown  in,  Bonne- 
camp continues  his  record.  Under  one  date  he  touches 
that  note  of  gloom  which  must  have  been  strongly 


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Where  France  and  England  Met  27 

felt  by  any  traveller  in  the  valley:  "We  continued 
our  route,  and  we  marched  [proceeded],  as  on  the 
first  day,  buried  in  the  sombre  and  dismal  valley." 
La  Belle  Riviere  was  not  a  name  given  by  one  who 
had  journeyed  many  days  in  that  dark  valley!  On 
the  day  after  he  observes:  "We  continued  our  route, 
always  surrounded  by  mountains — sometimes  so  high 
that  they  did  not  permit  us  to  see  the  sun  before 
9  or  10  o'clock  in  the  morning,  [or  after]  2  or  3 
in  the  afternoon.  This  double  chain  of  mountains 
stretches  along  the  Beautiful  River,  at  least  as  far 
as  Riviere  a  la  Roche  [Great  Miami]."  This  was  an 
exaggeration,  for  the  Ohio  is  not  enclosed  so  tightly 
in  the  hills  as  is  the  Allegheny.  He  corrects  this 
later,  for  in  speaking  of  the  Indian  villages  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Scioto  he  says:  "The  situation  of  the 
village  of  the  Chaouanons  [Shawanese]  is  quite  pleasant 
— at  least,  it  is  not  masked  by  the  mountains,  like 
the  other  villages  through  which  we  had  passed." 
This  was  near  the  site  of  the  present  village  of  Ports- 
mouth, Ohio. 

So  far  as  the  records  of  these  first  pilgrims  on  the 
Ohio  go  they  accord  with  our  sombre  picture  of  the 
valley  as  it  lay  two  centuries  ago.  The  French  found 
very  few  Indian  villages  and  these  were  often  com- 
posed of  only  a  half  dozen  cabins;  these  may  have 
been  long  "lodges"  capable  of  sheltering  many  families 
and  should  not  be  underestimated;  but,  at  a  rough 
guess,  Celoron  may  not  have  passed  in  his  whole 
journey  from  near  Warren,  Pennsylvania,  to  Cincinnati 
(mouth  of  Great  Miami)  the  homes  of  more  than 
three  hundred  Indian  families;  at  five  members  each 
the  population  of  the  immediate  river  would  have 


28  The  Ohio  River 

been  fifteen  hundred  souls — which  is  probably  a  lib- 
eral estimate.  In  1763  Sir  William  Johnson  esti- 
mated the  western  Indian  warriors  (exclusive  of  the 
Illinois)  at  nine  thousand,  which  would  perhaps 
imply  a  total  population  of  thirty  thousand.  The 
Indians  Celoron  met  belonged  to  the  three  divisions, 
the  Six  Nations  or  Iroquois,  the  Delawares,  and  the 
Shawanese.  The  Iroquois  became  known  as  Mingoes 
on  the  Ohio — it  mattered  not  from  which  of  the  Six 
Nations  they  came.  In  general  they  lived  upon  the 
Allegheny  and  near  the  junction  of  that  river  and  the 
Monongahela;  their  principal  town  was  Logstown, 
near  the  present  village  of  Economy,  Pennsylvania, 
a  little  below  Pittsburg.  The  name  is  preserved  in 
Mingo  Bottoms  and  Mingo  Junction  near  Steubenville, 
Ohio.  The  Delawares  lived  upon  the  Muskingum 
River  in  Ohio,  ranging  eastward  to  the  Allegheny 
and  Ohio  and  westward  to  the  Scioto  River.  Their 
chief  towns  were  at  the  present  sites  of  Coshocton  and 
Newcomer stown,  Ohio.  The  Shawanese  occupied  the 
Scioto  River;  their  ancient  town  was  on  the  Ohio 
at  the  mouth  of  that  river,  but  later  their  capital  was 
removed  to  Pickaway  Plains  near  the  present  Chil- 
licothe,  Ohio.  The  Miami  nation  occupied  the  river 
valley  of  that  name,  ranging  westward  to  the  Wabash 
and  eastward  to  the  Scioto;  their  chief  towns  were 
near  Piqua  and  Dayton  in  Ohio.  South  of  the  Ohio 
there  were  no  Indian  villages,  what  is  now  Kentucky 
having  been  for  some  years  the  rival  hunting-grounds 
of  these  northern  nations  and  the  Indian  nations 
south  of  the  Cumberland  Mountains.  To  the  north 
the  Wyandots  and  Ottawas  on  the  Miami-of-the 
Lakes,  or  Maumee,  River,  often  came  southward  to 


Where  France  and  England  Met  29 

hunt  near  the  Ohio,  and  the  Weas,  Kickapoos,  and 
Pottawatomies  on  the  Wabash,  and  the  IlHnois,  living 
on  the  river  of  that  name,  were  often  seen  building 
their  camp-fires  on  the  great  river  to  which  the 
Wabash  and  IlUnois  led;  but  the  main  towns  of  all 
these  tribes  were  on  the  lesser  inland  tributaries.  They 
saw  and  knew  what  the  old  Ohio  was,  a  dark  valley 
into  which  the  sun  hardly  shone  long  enough  to  dry 
the  prodigious  masses  of  driftwood — and  then  built 
their  homes  along  the  lesser  tributaries  in  the  sunny 
upland  meadows  of  the  interior. 

In  the  struggle  between  England  and  France  for 
the  Ohio  Basin  the  Indians  of  the  West  generally 
became  allied  with,  and  measurably  assisted,  the 
French;  the  Shawanese,  Dela wares,  Wyandots,  and 
many  Mingoes,  either  because  of  the  blandishments 
of  the  French  or  the  neglect  of  the  English,  were  found 
fighting  for  New  France.  So  far  as  the  Indians  were 
concerned  England  had  but  one,  half-mythical  right 
to  occupy  the  region  embraced  in  the  charter  to  the 
Ohio  Company;  in  1744,  at  a  treaty  at  Lancaster, 
Pennsylvania,  between  the  Governor  of  Pennsylvania, 
Colonel  Thomas  Lee,  and  Colonel  William  Beverly 
as  Commissioners  from  Virginia  and  the  Six  Nations, 
a  western  territory  of  undefined  extent  was  said  to 
have  been  absolutely  purchased  on  the  theory  that 
the  Six  Nations  had  a  right  to  sell  any  territory  over 
which  they  had  formerly  ruled  as  conquerors.  It 
will  be  seen  that,  as  soon  as  the  new  Ohio  Company 
sent  an  agent  to  the  Ohio  Indians,  the  latter  affirmed 
that  the  territory  purchased  at  Lancaster  was  bounded 
by  the  westernmost  ridge  (Laurel  Hill  and  Chestnut 
Ridge)  of  the  Alleghenies.     And  it  will  also  be  seen 


30  The  Ohio  River 

that  the  Indians  who  actually  lived  beyond  the  moun- 
tains thought  that  they  ought  to  be  consulted  in  the 
matter ! 

On  March  i8,  1749,  almost  three  months  before 
C^loron's  expedition  left  Montreal  for  the  Ohio,  the 
grant  was  made  by  King  George  to  the  Ohio  Com- 
pany of  Virginia  for  200,000  acres  of  land  on  the  south 
side  of  the  Ohio  River  and  between  the  Monongahela 
and  Great  Kanawha  rivers.  As  a  preliminary  step, 
the  Ohio  Company  built  a  storehouse  during  the  year 
following  on  the  upper  Potomac,  where  Cumberland, 
Maryland,  now  stands,  at  the  mouth  of  Will's  Creek. 
Here  an  old  trail  of  buffalo  and  Indian  left  the  Potomac 
and  crossed  the  mountains  to  the  tributaries  of  the 
Ohio  River,  passing  near  the  present  site  of  Pittsburg. 
This  was  Virginia's  avenue  of  approach  to  the  West — 
the  most  historic  path  from  the  Atlantic  seaboard  to 
the  Middle  West.  In  the  year  following  the  Ohio 
Company  engaged  the  veteran  woodsman  and  sur- 
veyor, Christopher  Gist,  v/hose  home  was  near  Daniel 
Boone's  home  on  the  Yadkin  River  on  the  far  frontier 
of  North  Carolina,  to  go  to  the  Ohio  Valley  and  make 
a  report  concerning  the  fertility  of  the  country  from 
its  head-waters  as  far  down-stream  as  "the  Falls," 
or  the  present  site  of  Louisville. 

When  you  find  a  large  quantity  of  good,  level  Land  [read 
Gist's  instructions],  such  as  you  think  will  suit  the  Company, 
You  are  to  measure  the  Breadth  of  it,  in  three  or  four  different 
Places,  &  take  the  Courses  of  the  River  &  Mountains  on  which 
it  binds  in  Order  to  judge  the  Quantity:  You  are  to  fix  the  Be- 
ginning &  Bounds  in  such  a  Manner  that  they  may  be  easily 
found  again  by  your  Description ;  the  nearer  in  [toward  Virginia] 
the  Land  hes  the  better,  provided  it  be  good  &  level,  but  we  had 


Where  France  and  England  Met  31 

rather  go  quite  down  [to]  the  Mississippi  than  take  mean  broken 
Land. 

Thus  it  is  clear  that  the  Ohio  Company  was  not,  in 
reality,  limited  to  the  boundaries  mentioned — the 
Monongahela,  Kanawha,  and  Ohio  rivers. 

Christopher  Gist's  Journal  of  his  tour  of  exploration 
for  the  Ohio  Company  is  the  second  earliest  author- 
itative record  that  comes  down  to  us  of  the  old  Ohio 
River.     Gist,  too,  was  accustomed  to  the  wildness  of 
the  western  forests   and   the  dark  rivers  which  ran 
through  them,  and  as  a  result  the  great  river  which  he 
now  visited  seemed  commonplace  to  him  and  he  leaves 
us  only  mere  hints  as  to  its  appearance.     His  Journal, 
while  dwelling  at  length  on  the  nature  of  the  forests 
and   meadows   through   which   he   passed,    is   largely 
devoted,  as  was  Celoron's,  to  the  political  crisis  that 
was  now  drawing  rapidly  on  and  which  was  soon  to  end 
in  a  convulsion  of  war.     At  the  end  of  October,  1750, 
Gist  departed  from  the  upper  Potomac  and,  by  a  north- 
em  route,   came  down  into  the  valley  of  the  Kiski- 
minitas    River    which    enters    the    Allegheny    above 
Pittsburg.     On    the     19  th   of   November   he  reached 
Shannopin's  Town,  in  the  suburbs  of  Pittsburg,  where 
Celoron  had  stopped  on  the  7  th  of  August  the  year 
before — when  six  English  traders  came  "all  trembling" 
before  him.     Gist's  record  for  the  day  reads:   "Set  out 
early  in  the  Morning  the  same  Course  (S70  W)  travelled 
very  hard  about  20  M  [miles]  to  a  small  Indian  town  of 
the  Dela wares  called  Shannopin  on  the  S  E  side  of  the 
River  Ohio,  where  We  rested  and  got  Com  for  our 
Horses.  "     Though  Gist  was  in  what  is  now  the  Twelfth 
Ward    of    the  city  of  Pittsburg,  and  within  a  short 
distance    of    the    junction    of    the    Monongahela    and 


32  The  Ohio  River 

Allegheny,  yet  he  calls  the  Allegheny  the  "River  Ohio  " ; 
this  shows  that,  among  the  English  as  well  as  among 
the  French,  the  Allegheny  and  Ohio  were  considered 
one  and  the  same  stream  in  1750. 

At  this  point  Gist  took  the  width  of  the  Ohio 
(Allegheny)  and  gives  it  as  "76  Poles" — 1254  feet. 
Here  he  crossed  the  river  and  passing  down  on  the 
other  bank  says  "At  a  Distance  from  the  River  [is] 
good  Land  for  Farming, ' '  showing  that  the  immediate 
shores  were  uninhabitable.  Gist  passed  on  to  Logs- 
town  and  the  mouth  of  Big  Beaver  River;  thence 
he  struck  inland  towards  the  Delaware  towns  on  the 
Muskingum,  whither,  he  learned,  George  Croghan, 
Deputy  Agent  of  Indian  Affairs  of  Pennsylvania,  and 
his  assistant  Montour,  had  gone  the  week  before. 
Croghan,  like  Gist,  was  busy  conciliating  the  Ohio 
Indians  to  the  English  cause,  though  it  was  found  that 
many  redskins  were  inviolably  attached  to  the  French. 
Since  reaching  the  Ohio  Gist  had  been  compelled  to 
hide  his  compass  and  note-book  and  pretend  that  his 
mission  was  purely  conciliatory  and  had  no  reference 
to  lands! 

From  the  Muskingum  Gist  passed  with  Croghan 
through  what  is  now  central  Ohio  to  the  Scioto  River, 
down  which  he  passed  to  its  mouth  on  the  Ohio  to 
what  he  calls  "Shannoah  Town,  "  the  chief  town  of  the 
Shaw^anese,  which  Celoron  visited  August  22-26  the 
year  previous.  This  town  "is  situate,"  records  Gist, 
"upon  both  Sides  of  the  River  Ohio,  just  below  the 
Mouth  of  Sciodee  [Scioto]  Creek,  and  contains  about 
300  Men,  there  aie  about  40  Houses  on  the  S  Side  of 
the  Rivei  and  about  100  on  the  N  Side,  with  a  kind 
of  State-House  of  about  90  feet  long  with  a  light 


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Where  France  and  Engrland  Met  33 


23' 


Cover  of  Bark  in  wch  they  hold  their  Councils." 
Thus,  it  is  seen,  an  exception  must  be  made  to  our 
former  statement  that  there  were  no  Indian  villages 
on  the  south  or  Kentucky  side  of  the  Ohio  River, 
though  the  tendency  of  this  exception  is  to  "  prove  the 
rule."  As  will  be  seen  later,  these  towns  were  soon 
abandoned,  but  at  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury they  were  probably  the  most  important  villages 
on  the  entire  Ohio  River,  occupying  the  present  site 
of  Portsmouth  and  Alexandria,  Ohio,  and  Springville, 
Kentucky.  The  Shawanese  here  were  found  to  be 
favorable  to  the  English,  and  Gist  and  Croghan  pro- 
ceeded to  strengthen  the  hold  already  acquired.  From 
this  point  Gist  made  a  long  tour  to  northwestern  Ohio 
to  the  chief  town  of  the  Miami  nation  at  Laramie's,  near 
Lima,  Ohio,  who  were  also  found  in  the  English  interests 
and  likewise  encouraged  to  withstand  the  blandish- 
ments of  the  French  at  the  nearby  Fort  Miami  on  the 
present  site  of  Fort  Wayne,  Indiana. 

By  the  beginning  of  spring  Gist  returned  to  the 
Ohio  at  the  mouth  of  the  Scioto,  and  was  ready  to 
extend  his  tour.  Crossing  the  Ohio  from  there,  he 
proceeded  down  the  Ohio  to  near  the  present  site  of 
Louisville.  The  report  of  a  party  of  "French  Indians " 
warned  him  away  from  "the  Falls,"  which  he  desired 
much  to  see;  he  turned  to  the  southeast,  however, 
and,  barely  touching  the  eastern  extremity  of  the 
famous  Blue  Grass  region,  he  toiled  onward  through 
the  mountainous  portion  of  Kentucky  and  passed 
into  Virginia  by  way  of  Pound  Gap.  The  best  land 
Gist  visited  (having  practically  missed  the  beautiful 
meadow-lands  of  Kentucky)  was  in  central  Ohio  along 
and   between   the  Muskingum,    Licking,   Scioto,    and 


34  The  Ohio  River 

Miami  rivers.  But  the  result  of  his  tour  would  have 
been  the  same  in  any  case — for  the  war  for  the  posses- 
sion of  the  Ohio  Valley  was  soon  to  be  precipitated, 
bringing  to  an  end,  for  the  time-being,  all  hopes  enter- 
tained by  the  promoters  of  the  Ohio  Company. 


Plan  of  Fort  Pitt. 


o 


Chapter  III 
Old  French  War  in  the  West 

THE  report  which  C^loron  made  to  his  Gover- 
nor at  Montreal  was  most  alarming;  it  was 
plain  that  the  traders  of  the  Ohio  Company  and 
others  were  alienating  a  considerable  portion 
of  the  western  savages ;  a  price  was  set  on  the  heads  of 
Croghan  and  Montour,  dead  or  alive,  and  measures 
were  immediately  set  on  foot  to  fortify  the  Ohio  Valley. 
And  so,  early  in  1753,  colonial  rangers  in  northern 
New  York  saw  a  flotilla  of  canoes  pass  Oswego  sailing 
westward ;  a  scouting  party  was  sent  overland  to  spy 
on  the  little  fleet.  Passing  the  portage  at  Niagara  the 
canoes  coasted  along  the  shores  of  Lake  Erie  and 
landed  at  what  is  now  Portland,  New  York,  at  the 
northern  end  of  the  hard  portage  to  Lake  Chatauqua, 
just  where  Celoron  had  landed  when  going  to  La  Belle 
Riviere.  The  spies  who  were  watching  the  movement 
of  the  French  party,  which  numbered  about  three 
hundred  men,  affirmed  that  a  dispute  arose  among  the 
French  officers  here  and  that  in  a  few  days  the  whole 
fleet  put  to  sea  again  and  proceeded  farther  west.  The 
EngHsh  spies  followed.  Arriving  at  last  at  a  prom- 
ontory which  jutted  out  far  into  the  lake  the  French 
again  landed.  The  promontory  was  so  nearly  an  island 
that  the  French  called  the  place  Presqu'  Isle,  "  almost 

35 


36  The  Ohio  River 

an  island";  this  is  the  present  site  of  Erie,  Pennsyl- 
vania. Here  the  soldiers  were  seen  to  set  to  work 
diligently  in  building  a  fort  which  they  named  Fort 
Presqu'  Isle. 

The  English  spies  hurried  a  messenger  back  to 
Oswego  with  the  news  that  the  French  were  building 
a  fort  on  Lake  Erie;  and,  soon  after,  they  sent  the 
additional  intelligence  that  the  enemy  was  building 
a  roadway  twenty  miles  long  straight  south  from 
Presqu'  Isle  to  Riviere  au  Boeufs,  the  tributary  of 
the  Allegheny  River  which  we  call  French  Creek 
to-day.  It  was  now  plain  to  the  blindest  that  the 
French  had  given  up  the  hard  Lake  Chatauqua  route 
from  the  lakes  to  the  Ohio  and  were  opening  and 
fortifying  the  easier  route  by  way  of  "the  river  of  the 
buffaloes,"  Riviere  au  Boeufs.  And  at  the  end  of 
the  twenty-mile  road  a  new  fort,  Fort  La  Boeuf,  was 
being  built  on  the  river  of  that  name,  where  Water- 
town,  Pennsylvania,  now  stands. 

These  reports  of  the  spies  spread  rapidly  through 
the  colonies  during  the  summer  of  1753,  bringing 
consternation  to  every  provincial  governor.  The 
French  were,  evidently,  tremendously  in  earnest  in 
their  claim  to  the  Ohio  Valley!  Of  them  all.  Gov- 
ernor Dinwiddle  of  Virginia  and  his  advisers  were 
most  alarmed,  and  they  began  at  once  to  take  meas- 
ures to  meet  the  ominous  crisis.  First,  a  strong  pro- 
test should  be  made  and  the  French  formally  asked 
to  retire  from  EngHsh  territory;  if  this  failed  a  resort 
to  arms  would  be  necessary.  Virginia's  activity  in 
the  matter  of  the  control  of  the  Ohio  is  in  marked 
contrast  to  Pennsylvania's  lethargy;  in  1750,  as  we 
have  seen,  Croghan  was  on  the  Ohio  with  Gist  taking 


Old  French  War  in  the  West  37 

the  temperature  of  the  Indians.  On  his  return  he 
advocated  the  erection  of  the  fort  on  the  Ohio  at 
Pittsburg  and  had  been  so  successful  as  to  secure  all 
really  necessary  permission  from  the  Indians;  but 
Pennsylvania,  fearing  Indian  opposition,  ignored  the 
golden  opportunity.  It  is  in  place  here  to  emphasize 
strongly  the  fact  of  Virginia's  zeal  in  the  opening  of 
the  Ohio  Basin  as  indicated,  first,  by  the  formation 
of  the  Ohio  Company,  and  now,  secondly,  by  opposing 
the  armed  advance  of  the  French. 

Governor  Dinwiddie  at  once  began  to  cast  about 
for  a  proper  person  to  carry  a  formal  protest  to  the 
French  at  Forts  La  Boeuf  and  Presqu'  Isle.  It  is 
little  wonder  that  several  refused  to  consider  the 
dangerous  journey  through  four  hundred  odd  miles 
of  almost  impassable  forest;  not  a  step  would  be 
taken  free  of  the  danger  of  receiving  the  contents 
of  a  French  Indian's  rifle.  Such  was  the  task  which 
Providence  ordained  should  show  to  the  world  the 
fearlessness  and  calm  persistency  of  its  favored  son, 
George  Washington,  then  an  obscure  major  of  Vir- 
ginia militia.  Probably  through  the  suggestion  of 
his  patron,  Lord  Fairfax,  Washington  was  given  the 
mission,  and,  with  the  tried  Christopher  Gist  as  guide, 
he  left  Williamsburgh,  Virginia,  October  30,  1753. 

"Faith,  you're  a  brave  lad,"  said  Dinwiddie,  as 
Washington  took  leave  of  him,  "and,  if  you  play 
your  cards  well,  you  shall  have  no  cause  to  repent 
your  bargain."  The  Ohio  Company  had,  in  the  year 
before,  through  the  agency  of  the  trained  woodsman 
Colonel  Thomas  Cresap,  engaged  a  Delaware  Indian, 
Nemacolin,  to  blaze  the  pathway  from  the  Potomac 
at  Will's  Creek  to  the  Monongahela  tributary  of  the 


o 


8  The  Ohio  River 


Ohio,  at  the  point  where  Brownsville,  Pennsylvania, 
stands.  The  main  trail  traversed  Laurel  Hill  and 
went  to  Shannopin's  Town  (Pittsburg);  a  branch 
left  the  main  trail  at  what  is  now  Mount  Braddock 
and  ran  to  Brownsville  or  Redstone  Old  Fort  as  the 
point  was  known  in  pioneer  days;  the  Ohio  Company 
soon  erected  another  storehouse,  or  "fort,"  here  at 
the  mouth  of  Redstone  Creek;  this  was  the  first 
building  erected  by  Englishmen  in  the  Ohio  Basin. 
Washington  and  Gist  passed  over  the  main  trail  to 
Shannopin's  Town,  not  traversing  the  branch  trail 
from  Mount  Braddock  to  the  storehouse  at  the  mouth 
of  Redstone  Creek. 

They  did  not  go  far  before  news  from  the  Allegheny 
reached  them.  Near  the  present  site  of  Braddock, 
Pennsylvania,  on  the  Monongahela,  they  were  enter- 
tained by  a  German  trader,  Frazier,  who  had  lived  on 
the  Allegheny  River  where  Franklin,  Pennsylvania, 
stands,  and  who  had  been  sent  away  from  the  place 
by  the  French  that  very  summer — ^his  house  being 
occupied  by  the  enemy  until  they  could  build  a  fort 
there.  From  Frazier  the  travellers  probably  heard  the 
French  title  read  pretty  clear  in  robust  German  oaths. 
From  this  point  they  descended  the  Monongahela  to 
the  strategic  point  of  land  between  the  Allegheny  and 
Monongahela;  in  his  Journal  of  his  trip,  which  is 
another  of  the  earliest  records  we  have  of  any  English- 
man on  the  Ohio,  Washington  correctly  prophesied 
that  "the  point"  (Pittsburg)  would  be  of  great  mili- 
tary and  commercial  importance.  It  is  singularly  in- 
teresting that  the  very  first  description  on  record  of 
the  exact  site  of  Pittsburg  should  have  been  in  the 
handwriting  of  George  Washington.     From  here  the 


■k; 


^-.     -X      -v 


73 

O 


O 

o 
-a 


'J 


J3 


O 
V 


X 


C 


Old  French  War  in  the  West  39 

travellers  passed  down  to  Logstown  where  they  met 
Half  King,  a  Delaware  chieftain,  loyal  to  the  English, 
who  had  just  returned  from  the  French  fort  on  the 
Allegheny  where  he  had  gone  to  lodge  a  protest  against 
the  French  advance.  The  dying  Marin,  the  French 
officer  in  command,  had  spumed  Half  King  from  his 
presence,  saying  that  the  Indians  did  not  own  the 
land  on  the  Ohio  or  any  part  of  it — not  even  the  dirt 
under  their  finger-nails! 

With  such  ominous  warnings  of  the  determination 
of  the  enemy,  Washington  and  Gist  set  out  with  Half 
King  for  French  Creek,  November  30th;  arriving 
at  Frazier's  cabin,  at  the  mouth  of  that  creek,  they 
were  not  inhospitably  entertained  by  the  French 
agent,  Joncaire;  but  when  the  wine  had  mounted 
to  his  head  he  talked  as  fiercely  as  Marin  had  talked 
to  Half  King. 

They  told  me  [wrote  Washington]  that  it  was  their  absolute 
Design  to  take  Possession  of  the  Ohio,  and  by  G —  they  would 
do  it;  for  that  although  they  were  sensible  the  English  could 
raise  two  Men  for  their  one;  yet  they  knew,  their  Motions  were 
too  slow  and  dilatory  to  prevent  any  Undertaking  of  theirs. 

Joncaire  craftily  made  Washington's  Indians,  includ- 
ing Half  King,  too  drunk  to  proceed  immediately  to 
Fort  La  Boeuf  enabling  his  own  runners  to  reach  the 
fort  and  give  word  of  the  coming  of  the  English 
"spies" — for  such  Washington  and  Gist  really  were. 
But  on  December  nth  the  travellers  reached  the  fort, 
on  the  present  site  of  Water  town,  Pennsylvania,  and 
were  courteously  received  by  the  one-eyed  veteran 
Legardeur  de  St.  Pierre,  who  had  succeeded  the  dead 
Marin.  To  him  Washington  handed  a  message  from 
the   Governor  of  Virginia  which    stated  that  it  was 


40  The  Ohio  River 

a  Matter  of  equal  Concern  and  Surprize  ...  to  hear  that  a 
Body  of  French  Forces  are  erecting  Fortresses,  and  making 
Settlements  upon  .  .  .  [the  Ohio]  River  [which  was]  so  notori- 
ously known  to  be  the  Property  of  the  Crown  of  Great  Britain. 
...  it  becomes  my  Duty  [added  Governor  Dinwiddle]  to 
require  your  peaceable  Departure;  and  that  you  would  forbear 
prosecuting  a  Purpose  so  interruptive  of  the  Harmony  and  good 
Understanding,  which  his  Majesty  is  desirous  to  continue  and 
cultivate  with  the  most  Christian  King  [of  France]. 

By  the  middle  of  December  Washington  and  Gist 
were  setting  out  homeward  with  St.  Pierre's  reply  to 
Governor  Dinwiddie ;  as  was  to  be  expected  they  were 
partially  led  into  a  trap  by  a  treacherous  guide,  and 
but  for  a  French  Indian's  gun  missing  fire  Washington 
would  probably  have  been  buried  in  the  snow-drifted 
Alleghenies  at  this  time.  On  the  first  day  of  the  new 
year,  1754,  they  were  taking  their  departure  a  second 
time  from  Frazier's  cabin  on  the  IMonongahela,  and  on 
January  i6th  Washington,  pale  and  worn,  rode  into 
Williamsburgh,  the  capital  of  Virginia.  St.  Pierre's 
reply  was  all  that  could  have  been  expected  from  a 
brave  under-officer : 

As  to  the  Summons  [he  wrote]  you  send  [asking]  me  to 
retire,  I  do  not  think  myself  obliged  to  obey  it.  What-ever 
may  be  your  Instructions,  I  am  here  by  Virtue  of  the  Orders  of 
my  General;  and  I  intreat  you,  Sir,  not  to  doubt,  one  Moment, 
but  that  I  am  determined  to  conform  myself  to  them  with  all 
the  Exactness  and  Resolution  which  can  be  expected  from  the 
best  Officer.  I  don't  know  that  in  the  Progress  of  this  Cam- 
paign any  Thing  passed  which  can  be  reputed  an  Act  of  Hostility, 
or  that  is  contrary  to  the  Treaties,  which  subsist  between  the 
two  Crowns.  .  .  .  Had  you  been  pleased,  Sir,  to  have  descended 
to  particularize  the  Facts  which  occasioned  your  Complaint,  I 
should  have  had  the  Honour  of  answering  you  in  the  fullest, 
and,  I  am  persuaded,  most  satisfactory  Manner. 


Old  French  War  in  the  West  41 

Governor  Dinwiddie  had  anticipated  the  burden 
of  the  French  reply,  if  not  its  rich  sarcasm;  for  when 
Washington  was  between  Frazier's  cabin  and  Will's 
Creek  he  met  a  party  with  seventeen  horses  laden 
with  materials  and  stores  "for  a  fort,"  he  wrote  in 
his  Journal,  ' '  at  the  Fork  of  the  Ohio. "  If  Washington 
was  correct  (of  which  there  is  little  doubt)  these  were 
packhorses  transferring  westward  the  materials  with 
which  Captain  William  Trent  was  to  erect  a  fort  on  the 
present  site  of  Pittsburg ;  this  officer  had  been  ordered 
by  Dinwiddie  to  raise  a  company  of  men  and  proceed 
at  once  to  the  Ohio.  Trent  arrived  at  the  junction 
of  the  Allegheny  and  Monongahela  February  17, 
1754,  and  he  proceeded  instantly  to  carry  out  his 
orders;  in  the  following  thirty  days  he  erected  the 
first  military  work  raised  by  white  man  on  what  we 
now  call  the  Ohio  River,  on  the  site  of  historic  Fort 
Duquesne.  The  work  came  to  a  sudden  pause  when, 
on  April  1 6th,  a  messenger  from  the  French  officer, 
Contrecoeur,  then  descending  the  Allegheny  with  a 
thousand  men  and  eighteen  pieces  of  artillery  in  a 
fleet  of  three  hundred  and  sixty  canoes  and  batteaux, 
brought  a  haughty  challenge  to  the  English  right  to 
build  the  half-finished  fort. 

Nothing  can  surprise  me  more  [the  message  to  Trent  began] 
than  to  see  you  attempt  a  settlement  upon  the  lands  of  the 
King,  my  Master;  which  obliges  me  now,  Sir,  ...  to  know  of 
you  ...  by  virtue  of  what  authority  you  are  come  to  fortify 
yourself  ...  Let  it  be  as  it  will,  Sir,  ...  I  summon  you  in 
the  name  of  the  King,  my  Master,  ...  to  retreat  peaceably 
with  your  troops  from  off  the  lands  of  the  King.  ...  In  that 
case,  Sir,  you  may  be  persuaded  that  I  will  give  orders  that 
there  shall  be  no  damage  done  by  my  detachment. 


42  Tile  Ohio  River 

In  the  temporary  absence  of  Captain  Trent,  Ensign 
Ward  received  the  communication  and  replied  that  he 
would  depart  with  his  party,  which  numbered  forty- 
two  men. 

On  the  slight  beginnings  made  by  this  English 
company  the  French  under  Contrecoeur  erected  Fort 
Duquesne  in  1754,  named  in  honor  of  the  Governor 
of  New  France. 

Fort  Duquesne  [wrote  a  French  soldier,  Thomas  Forbes] 
is  built  of  square  Logs  transversely  placed  as  is  frequent  m 
Mill  Dams,  and  the  Interstices  filled  up  with  Earth;  the  length 
of  these  Logs  is  about  sixteen  Feet  which  is  the  thickness  of  the 
Rampart.  There  is  a  Parapet  raised  on  the  Rampart  of  Logs, 
and  the  length  of  the  Curtains  is  about  30  feet,  and  the  Demi- 
gorge  [half  of  the  vacant  space  or  entrance  into  a  bastion]  of 
the  Bastions  about  eighty.  The  Fort  is  surrounded  on  the 
two  sides  that  do  not  front  the  Water  [rivers]  with  a  Ditch  about 
12  feet  wide  and  very  deep,  because  there  being  no  covert  way 
the  Musquetteers  fire  from  thence  having  a  Glacis  before  them.^ 

Steps  were  immediately  being  taken  in  Virginia 
to  man  and  hold  the  forts  Trent  was  to  build,  and  in 
IMarch  Colonel  Joshua  Fry  was  ordered  from  Alex- 
andria to  Will's  Creek,  with  troops  then  being  raised 
by  Major  Washington,  and  thence  to  the  Monon- 
gahela. 

When  arrived  there  [his  orders  read],  You  are  to  make  Choice 
of  the  best  Place  to  erect  a  Fort  for  mounting  y'r  Cannon  and 
ascertain'g  His  M'y  the  King  of  G.  B.'s  undoubt'd  right  to 
those  Lands.  My  Orders  to  You  is  to  be  on  the  Defensive  and 
if  any  foreign  Force  sh'd  come  to  annoy  You  .  .  .  You  are  in 
that  Case  to  represent  to  them  the  Powers  and  Orders  You  have 
from  me,  and  I  desire  they  w'd  immediately  retire  and  not  to 
prevent  You  in  the  discharge  of  your  Duty.     If  they  sh'd  con- 

«  Frontier  Forts  of  Pennsylvania,  ii.,  44. 


wj^m^i 


;i;Mi!.;;!,-i.:i*^ 


</, 


<^. 


'v^>^ 


Old  French  War  in  the  West  43 

tinue  to  be  obstinate  after  your  desire  [order]  to  retire,  you  are 
then  to  repell  Force  by  Force. 

Washington  had  been  finding  it  difficult  to  raise 
men;  as  in  the  other  colonies,  so  in  Virginia,  the 
common  people  were  not  enthusiastic  over  the  quarrel 
about  the  possession  of  the  Ohio  Valley;  lands  there 
were  being  given  away  only  to  favorites,  like  Gov- 
ernor Johnson  of  Maryland,  and  to  men  "with  a  pull, " 
as  we  say — Hke  the  members  of  the  Ohio  Company. 
As  a  result  Governor  Dinwiddle  was  compelled  to 
issue  a  proclamation  granting  two  hundred  thousand 
acres  of  land  on  the  Ohio  to  the  officers  and  men  who 
would  now  go  and  fight  England's  battle  for  that 
country  beyond  the  mountains. 

This  had  an  effect,  and  by  April  20th  Washington 
reached  Will's  Creek  with  three  companies;  nine  more 
came  later.  On  April  27  th  the  young  commander 
received  word  of  the  arrival  at  Fort  Duquesne  of 
Contrecoeur;  hurrying  a  letter  off  to  the  Governor 
he  got  his  troops  in  motion,  and  set  out  for  the  Ohio  as 
an  advance  guard  of  the  army  which  was  to  follow 
under  Colonel  Fry.  It  was  found  difficult  to  open  a 
road  on  Nemacolin's  path  wide  enough  to  allow  the 
passage  of  the  swivel  guns,  and  the  rate  of  progress 
was  slow ;  on  the  20th  of  May  the  vanguard  was  at  the 
crossing-place  of  the  Youghiogheny  with  Washington 
testing  the  river  to  see  if  it  were  practicable  to  go  from 
there  by  boat  to  the  Ohio.  This  proved  impossible 
because  of  the  rapids,  and  the  march  was  again  re- 
sumed on  the  Indian  trail;  on  the  24th  of  May  Wash- 
ington arrived  at  the  Great  Meadows,  the  one  open 
spot  in  the  forests  between  the  Potomac  and  the 
Ohio.     The  sunny  fields,    some   two   miles   long   and 


44  The  Ohio  River 

half  a  mile  wide,  were  watered  by  Great  Meadow 
Brook ;  here  the  tired  men  were  glad  to  rest. 

They  needed  rest  because  of  the  labors  they  had 
undergone — and  the  terrible  struggles  to  be  endured. 
Contrecoeur,  at  his  fort,  learned  through  his  Indian 
spies  of  Washington's  advance,  and  immediately 
ordered  out  a  scouting  party  of  thirty-four  men  to 
reconnoitre.  This  band,  under  the  leadership  of 
Sieur  Jumonville,  hastened  toward  Great  Meadows 
and  erected  a  little  hut  in  a  deep  valley  under  Laurel 
Mountain,  less  than  a  dozen  miles  from  Great  Meadows, 
as  a  hiding-place  and  rendezvous.  The  faithful  Half 
King  sent  word  of  this  to  Washington;  it  arrived 
at  eight  o'clock  in  the  evening  of  May  27th.  Instantly 
the  young  Major  summoned  a  handful  of  his  force 
and  started  on  a  night  march  for  the  French  covert; 
and  as  dawn  was  breaking  Washington  gave  the 
command  to  fire  from  the  rocks  above  their  hut. 
Jumonville  was  killed  with  nine  of  his  followers; 
twenty-one  Frenchmen  were  taken  prisoners.  One 
escaped  to  Fort  Duquesne  with  the  alarming  news. 

Thus  opened  the  war  by  which  England  at  last 
won  the  Ohio  Basin  from  France — far  up  in  the  moun- 
tain fogs  near  the  head-springs  of  the  Youghiogheny 
River  in  Fayette  County,  Pennsylvania,  about  seven 
miles  from  Uniontown.  A  little  mound  of  stones  still 
marks  what  is  known  as  " Jumonville' s  Grave,"  and 
about  it  the  explorer  who  has  struggled  through  the 
dense  undergrowth  of  the  forest  from  Dunbar's  Spring, 
half  a  mile  away,  will  see  the  rude  wooden  crosses, 
made  of  fence  rails  or  broken  boughs,  that  previous 
visitors  have  reverently  erected  above  the  lonely 
grave,  but  which  the  mountain  winds  have  as  often 


Old  French  War  in  the  West  45 

thrown  down.  Impulsively  you  raise  one  of  these 
above  the  pile  of  stones;  the  next  wind-rack  will  tear 
it  down,  but  another  pilgrim  will  raise  it  again  in- 
stinctively— a  cross  throws  no  shadow  in  the  dense 
shade  of  laurel  and  tan-bark. 

Upon  his  return  to  Great  Meadows  Washington 
immediately  prepared  to  continue  his  advance  to  the 
Monongahela  River;  indeed  he  did  proceed  as  far  as 
Gist's  plantation  on  Mount  Braddock  but  while  here 
his  spies  informed  him  that  Contrecoeur  was  sending 
a  formidable  army  against  the  Virginia  provincials. 
This  army  was  ascending  the  Monongahela  to  the 
storehouse  at  the  mouth  of  Redstone  Creek — the  very 
point  Washington  intended  to  occupy  and  fortify. 
The  Virginians  w^ere  compelled  to  withdraw  from 
before  the  more  powerful  force  led  by  Le  Grand  Villiers, 
as  the  French  Indians  knew  him.  The  situation  soon 
became  desperate;  Washington's  provisions  had  not 
arrived  from  Will's  Creek,  and  when  he  reached  Great 
Meadows  he  found  that  none  had  arrived  there ;  Colonel 
Fry  had  been  thrown  from  his  horse  and  killed  near 
Will's  Creek,  and  no  more  of  the  "army"  had  yet 
started  westward  save  one  small  company  which  was 
now  at  the  Meadows.  Thus  with  about  three  hundred 
men,  almost  destitute  of  provisions,  Washington  had 
been  left  to  his  fate — and  a  French  army  of  superior 
numbers  was  coming  straight  to  the  English  camp, 
according  to  the  daily  reports  of  the  hurrying  spies. 

The  battle  at  Fort  Necessity  is  an  old  story  often 
told ;  the  fort  was  well-named,  since  the  troops  had  no 
food  to  give  them  strength  to  move  from  the  Meadows ; 
they  could  only  crouch  in  their  trenches  and  fight  under 
the  artificial  stimulation  of  liquor.     VilHers  and  his 


46  The  Ohio  River 

French  and  Indians  covered  the  northern  hillsides  on 
the  2d  of  July  and  then  swept  around  to  the  southern 
heights  which  approached  more  closely  to  the  little 
quarter  of  an  acre  in  the  lowlands,  where,  in  a  hastily 
raised  "fort"  composed  of  four  palisaded  embank- 
ments reinforced  by  two  advance  rifle-pits,  the  English 
fought  throughout  the  dismal,  rainy  3d  of  July. 
The  capitulation  followed  in  the  night,  and  on  July  4th 
the  Virginians  were  allowed  to  move  away  towards 
Will's  Creek  with  the  honors  of  war.  Fifty-four  had 
been  killed  or  wounded,  and  another  of  the  remotest 
tributaries  of  the  Monongahela  had  quenched  the 
thirst  and  bathed  the  wounds  of  soldiers  fighting  for 
the  conquest  of  the  Ohio  River. 

Washington's  reverse,  however,  so  far  from  putting 
an  end  to  English  hopes  of  conquering  the  West,  set 
the  mother-country  and  the  colonies  fully  on  fire  to 
fight  France  to  the  bitter  end.  The  Duke  of  Cum- 
berland was  charged  to  plan  a  grand  American  cam- 
paign for  the  year  of  1755;  it  was  divided  into  three 
parts;  Sir  William  Johnson  was  to  strike  at  Fort 
Crown  Point,  General  Shirley  at  Fort  Niagara,  and 
General  Edward  Braddock  was  called  from  Gibraltar 
to  wrest  Fort  Duquesne  from  the  enemy.  Braddock 
was  the  protege  of  the  Duke  of  Cumberland,  well- 
trained  in  the  art  of  war  as  practised  on  European 
fields  and  brave  enough  to  lead  where  any  man  would 
dare  to  follow.  In  temperament  and  disposition  he 
was  no  better  than  the  average  licentious  army  liber- 
tine. A  large  part  of  his  resources  and  supplies  was 
to  come  from  the  coffers  of  the  provinces  in  which 
he  was  ordered  to  operate,  Maryland,  Virginia,  and 
Pennsylvania.     Half  of  his  troops  were  to  be  militia- 


iLii^' 


Jumonville  s  Grave." 


'^n  .->. 


^O 


'a^^ 

^•:^-^. 


Old  French  War  in  the  West  47 

men  from  the  same  provinces — those  that  he  brought 
with    him    from    England    and    Ireland,    numbering 
perhaps   a   thousand   men,   were   as   poor   a   class   of 
soldiery  as  could  have  sailed  from  Europe  to  America. 
The  fleet  dropped  anchor  at  Alexandria,  Virginia,  the 
middle    of    March    and    Braddock    was    immediately 
engaged   in   the   details   of   his   perplexing   situation. 
Few  if  any  of  the  orders  sent  to  the  colonies  con- 
cerning Braddock' s  expedition  had  been  fully  obeyed; 
most  of  them  had  been  entirely  neglected.     Nowhere, 
as  we  have  hinted,  was  there  any  popular  feeling  in 
the   matter   of   ousting   the   French   from   the    Ohio; 
and  the  assemblies  of  the  various  colonies  were  truly 
representative  of  the  people  who  elected  them.     Penn- 
sylvania  was   entirely   apathetic,    and   what   soldiers 
she  had  yearning  to  go  on  the  war-path   had   gone 
northward   to   serve  with  Johnson  or  Shirley.     Very 
little  money  was  forthcoming  for  Braddock' s  strong 
box;     commands   sent   concerning   roadbuilding   read 
as   though   the  roads   were   to   be   built   through   an 
English  park  instead  of  across  the  dark  and  tangled 
AUeghenies;    and  chief  among  this  tragedy  of  errors 
was  the  sending  of  Braddock  to  Virginia  where  horses 
and  wagons  and  wheat  were  little  known,  when  all 
were    comparatively    plentiful    in    Pennsylvania,    the 
"granary  of  America."     Moreover,  by  this  time  the 
western    Indians    had,     through    the    blandishments 
and  success  of  the  French  and  the  wanton  carelessness 
of   the   colonies   most   concerned,    become    altogether 
alienated    from    England.     The    faithful    Half    King 
had  died  the  fall  before  at  John  Harris's  on  the  Sus- 
quehanna   (Harrisburg),    and   no  one  took  his   place 
to  hold  his  warriors  loyal.    In  vain  did  the  blustering, 


48  The  Ohio  River 

egotistical  Braddock  dash  about  Virginia  in  his  lum- 
bering coach;  in  vain  did  he  appeal  by  letter  to  those 
from  whom  he  had  a  right  to  expect  help;  there 
was  no  help,  and  as  the  army  straggled  by  various 
routes  up  the  Potomac  to  Will's  Creek  there  was  only 
a  mere  hope  of  success  in  Braddock 's  heart  and  that 
hope  burned  all  too  dim,  and  with  good  reason. 

Considering  all  the  conditions  Braddock  was 
the  unhappiest  choice  for  commander  that  could 
have  been  made  and  every  untoward  circumstance 
tended  to  make  him  the  more  unfit.  Wolfish 
contractors  deceived  and  cheated  him — rendering 
him  furiously  angry  beyond  hope  of  conciliation; 
well-meaning  governors,  helpless  in  the  face  of  pub- 
lic indifference,  made  promises  they  could  not 
keep — embittering  Braddock  against  them  as  well  as 
against  the  people  whom  he  should  have  aroused 
from  their  lethargy.  Properly  supported  and 
seconded,  Braddock  would  have  won  lasting  fame; 
his  faults  were  incidental,  not  vital.  As  it  was,  his 
campaign  stands  the  most  spectacular  tragedy  in 
American  history  and  its  leader  is  remembered  only  as 
a  bigoted  braggart. 

The  story  of  the  march  and  defeat  of  this  English 
and  provincial  army  is  too  well  known  to  need  full 
explanation  here  in  a  history  of  the  Ohio  River.  In 
reality  its  effect  on  the  history  of  that  river  was  im- 
perceptible; its  tragic  elements  give  it  a  seeming 
importance,  whereas  it  had  almost  none. 

Fort  Cumberland  had  been  erected  in  the  fall  and 
winter  of  1754-5  at  Will's  Creek,  on  the  present  site 
of  Cumberland,  Maryland.  Here  Braddock's  army 
of  about  two  thousand  men  lay  preparing  to  march 


Old  French  War  in  the  West  49 

westward  about  the  first  of  June.  Sir  Peter  Halket 
moved  off  on  the  7  th  with  a  brigade  composed  of  the 
44th  Regiment,  two  Independent  Companies  of  New 
York,  two  companies  of  Virginia  Rangers,  and  one  of 
Maryland  Rangers,  nine  hundred  and  eighty-four 
men;  on  the  9th  Colonel  Dunbar  advanced  with  the 
48th  Regiment,  a  company  of  carpenters,  three  com- 
panies of  Virginia  Rangers  and  one  each  from  North 
and  South  Carolina,  nine  hundred  and  ninety- three 
men;  on  the  loth  Braddock  and  aides  followed  with 
a  bodyguard  of  over  two  hundred,  making  the  total 
force  approximate  twenty-two  hundred  men,  not 
including  six  hundred  pioneers  who  had  advanced 
previously  to  open  historic  "Braddock's  Road"  along 
Nemacolin's  path.  The  route  was,  in  general,  that 
of  the  old  National  Road  from  Cumberland  to  Frost- 
burg,  Maryland,  Smithfield  and  Farmington,  Penn- 
sylvania; on  the  summit  of  Laurel  Hill,  Braddock's 
Road  turned  northward  toward  Mount  Braddock, 
Connellsville,  and  Pittsburg. 

There  was  hardly  any  question  of  Braddock's 
success,  despite  the  tremendous  handicaps  under 
which  he  had  struggled,  if  he  could  once  get  to  Fort 
Duquesne.  Contrecoeur  knew  this  better  than  Brad- 
dock; he  had  no  means  of  effectively  opposing  the 
English  advance;  his  Indians  preferred  "cooking  and 
councilling"  to  fighting,  after  all,  and  the  needed 
reinforcements  from  Niagara  with  provisions  had  not 
come  and  could  not  come  while  the  rivers  were  so  low. 
This  the  clear-headed  Washington,  aide  to  Braddock, 
foresaw,  and,  consequently,  urged  the  General,  in 
view  of  the  slow  progress  the  army  had  made  to  Little 
Crossings,  to  divide  it,  and  hurry  on  to  the  Ohio  with 


50  The  Ohio  River 

a  "flying  column"  before  the  rivers  afforded  the 
French  reinforcements. 

Braddock  took  the  advice  and,  leaving  Colonel 
Dunbar  behind  with  the  heavy  wagons,  hastened 
forward  with  thirty  wagons  and  over  twelve  hundred 
troops.  Even  this  was  sufficient  for  the  conquest  of 
the  Ohio,  and  Contrecoeur  made  preparations  for  an 
abandonment  of  his  position.  There  was  little  or  no 
hope  of  withstanding  such  an  army  as  his  spies  reported 
was  en  route  to  the  Ohio ;  and  he  was  also  probably  ap- 
prised of  Governor  Shirley's  campaign  against  Niagara 
and  knew  that  the  attack  on  that  fort  would  prevent 
any  reinforcements  being  sent  southward;  he  likewise 
saw  that  the  capture  of  Niagara  would  completely 
cut  him  off  from  his  source  of  supplies.  An  honorable 
capitulation  was  the  best  that  could  be  expected  from 
the  bulldog  Braddock,  who  had  overcome  a  thousand 
difficulties  and  was  now,  on  the  eighth  of  July,  en- 
camped within  eighteen  miles  of  the  Ohio. 

But  an  impulsive,  hotheaded  French  captain  of 
Contrecoeur's — ^Beaujeu  by  name — conceived  a  plan 
of  opposing  Braddock  at  the  Monongahela  River, 
which  the  English  must  cross  next  day  at  Frazier's 
new  cabin  on  the  present  site  of  Braddock,  Penns}^- 
vania;  Contrecoeur  acquiesced  in  the  wild  scheme  on 
the  theory  that  it  might  delay  the  capitulation — and 
the  hoped-for  reinforcements  from  the  north  might 
possibly  arrive  in  the  meantime.  Beaujeu  had  gone 
out  on  the  Indian  trail  to  Frazier's  and  studied  the 
ground  carefully.  As  it  left  the  river  the  pathway 
mounted  the  "second  bottom"  on  the  eastern  shore 
on  a  ridge  which  was  paralleled  by  two  thick  ravines, 
and  on  the  left  (looking  from  the  river)  a  slight  hill 


-^ 


'^-     *• 


1 
i 


1 


The  Site  of  "  Fort  Necessity"  in  Great  Meadows. 


A  Present-Day  View  on  Braddock's  Road. 


% 

%,<& 


'^^ 


Old  French  War  in  the  West  51 

arose  beyond  the  ravine.  The  French  captain  prob- 
ably saw  that  he  could  annoy  the  English  at  the  fording 
place  and  then  retire  with  his  Canadians  and  Indians 
to  these  ravines.  If  the  English  marched  on  the  trail 
(as  they  were  almost  sure  to  do)  they  would  be  caught 
fairly  between  these  depressions,  from  which  the  un- 
seen rifles  of  his  men  could  give  them  a  most  withering 
fire. 

The  fatal  ninth  of  July  dawned  bright  and  clear; 
the  Enghsh  moved  in  battle  array  down  Turtle  Creek 
and  crossed  the  Monongahela,  following  the  Indian 
trail;  descending  that  river  they  came  to  the  second 
ford  at  Frazier's  cabin;  all  was  well  and  the  road- 
makers  crossed  at  the  ford  and  began  clearing  the 
trail  along  the  ridge  beyond  the  river.  Beaujeu  was 
too  late!  The  French  Indians  were  not  easily  to  be 
engaged  against  such  an  army  as  Braddock's.  It  was 
only  at  the  very  last  minute  that,  with  a  theatrical 
gesture  which  was  electrifying,  he  had  shouted  that 
he  would  attack  the  English  alone ;  the  savage  lust  for 
battle  was  awakened;  an  EngUsh  prisoner  at  the  fort 
affirmed  that  the  scene  which  followed  was  quite  in- 
describable; liquor  and  powder  and  bullets  were  poured 
out  in  lavish  quantities,  and  Beaujeu  and  his  savage 
beasts  sped  down  the  trail  hot  for  the  contest.  They 
numbered,  at  the  outside,  six  hundred  rifles — most  of 
them  in  the  hands  of  savages.  It  must  have  been 
the  wildest  sight  ever  seen  in  the  West,  save  one. 

Just  as  the  English  pioneers  had  reached  the  ridge 
and  were  opening  the  road  along  its  summit,  Beaujeu 
bounded  into  sight  on  the  narrow  trail  ahead.  For 
a  moment  the  daring  man  paused,  baffled.  Then, 
with  a  sudden  wave  of  his  hand,  the  wild  rabble  behind 


52  The  Ohio  River 

him  dropped  instantly  into  the  ravines  on  each  side 
of  the  trail.  The  advance  guard  of  the  English,  who 
were  acting  as  a  guard  to  the  pioneers,  excitedly  fired 
at  the  disappearing  enemy  far  in  the  distance — utterly 
throwing  away  their  ammunition.  The  entire  army 
was  now  over  the  river,  the  larger  part  being  on  the 
"first  bottom";  hearing  the  scattering  fire  Braddock 
at  once  ordered  up  a  strong  support  to  the  vanguard 
under  Burton.  The  troops  advanced  with  precision 
along  the  ridge  toward  the  front.  At  the  same  time 
the  French  and  Indians  were  struggling  through  the 
thick  undergrowth  of  the  ravines,  passing  the  pioneers 
and  vanguard  above  them  until  the  two  opposing  forces 
were  almost  opposite  each  other,  the  one  on  the  high 
ground,  the  other  hidden  in  the  ravines  on  either  side. 
The  English  passed  on  believing  the  foe  was  in  front; 
the  Indians  and  French  passed  forward  knowing  that 
their  enemy  was  above  and  between  them.  Those 
in  the  low  ground  could  see  those  above  them;  those 
on  the  ridge  could  not  see  the  rifles  in  the  thick  under- 
growth of  the  ravines.  Thus  the  fatal  position  of  the 
battle  was  quickly  assumed.  The  Indians  wormed 
their  way  to  the  brink  of  the  ravines  where  they  could 
see  the  redcoats  huddled  together  in  the  twelve-foot 
aisle  of  a  road;  the  most  careless  marksman  among 
them  could  not  miss  his  aim  there;  and  almost  every 
bullet  found  the  man  it  was  sent  to  find. 

The  French  who  had  taken  the  left-hand  (eastern) 
ravine  divided,  a  part  climbing  up  the  slight  hill,  from 
which  they  had  a  plain  view  of  the  roadway  and  were 
in  a  position  where  they  could  fire  over  their  com- 
rades secreted  in  the  ravine  below  them.  Thus  at 
this  point  the  French  brought  to  bear  not  only  the 


Old  French  War  in  the  West  53 

rifles  in  each  ravine  but  also  those  on   the  hillside 
beyond  the  eastern  ravine. 

In  vain  the  desperate  Braddock  ordered  forward 
company  after  company;  in  vain  did  the  colonials, 
accustomed  to  border  warfare,  take  to  the  trees  (heed- 
less of  Braddock's  alleged  rebukes) — for  no  side  of  a 
tree,  but  the  inside,  was  safe  from  rifles  located  on 
either  hand — and  the  colonials  lost  as  heavily  or  more 
so  than  the  British  regulars.  In  vain  did  the  English 
charge  into  the  low  ground;  the  enemy  ran  helter- 
skelter  from  before  them — and  then  cautiously  returned 
to  deliver  a  telling  fire  upon  the  retiring  troops.  To 
advance  straight  through  the  murderous  trap  in  which 
he  had  lunged  heavily,  or  to  retreat  from  its  jaws, 
was  Braddock's  only  hope  of  victory;  and  either 
plan  would  have  resulted  in  victory.  But  the  troops 
could  not  be  pushed  beyond  that  terrible  blood-red 
vortex,  where  the  French  and  Indian  bullets  from 
the  two  ravines  and  the  hill  to  the  right  wrought 
such  frightful  carnage — and  Braddock  was  too  brave 
and  too  dull  a  man  to  cry  "retreat"  until  a  French 
bullet  drove  the  ignominious  word  from  his  bleeding 
lungs.  Fourteen  captains  out  of  twenty-one  were 
killed  and  wounded;  eight  ensigns  out  of  fourteen 
were  killed  or  wounded;  thirty-seven  sergeants  out 
of  fifty-eight  were  killed  or  wounded;  eight  of  the 
eighteen  gunners  were  dead  and  six  were  wounded; 
three  hundred  and  twenty-eight  of  the  twelve  hundred 
privates  were  wounded  and  fifty-eight  more  were  killed 
than  were  wounded.  Probably  not  more  than  thirty 
Canadians  and  Indians  were  killed  and  wounded  all 
told — the  dare-devil  Beaujeu  being  one  of  the  very 
first  to  fall. 


54  The  Ohio  River 

Yet  his  temporizing  ambuscade  had  resulted  in 
a  most  bewildering  victory.  The  English  army  fled 
back  across  the  ford  and  headlong  upon  Colonel 
Dunbar,  who  by  this  time  had  reached  "Dunbar's 
Spring"  on  Laurel  Hill,  not  half  a  mile  from  Jumon- 
ville's  grave.  This  portion  of  the  army  was  panic- 
stricken  and  the  large  desertions  made  it  impossible 
for  Dunbar  to  think  of  advancing.  Accordingly  the 
entire  force  went  backward  to  Fort  Cumberland  and 
Virginia,  burying  poor  Braddock,  who  lived  three 
days,  near  what  is  now  Braddock's  Run,  a  mile  from 
Chalk  Hill,  Fayette  County,  Pennsylvania.  And  the 
English  prisoner  at  Fort  Duquesne  chronicled  another 
scene, — and  this  was  the  wildest  sight  ever  seen  on  the 
banks  of  the  Ohio  before  or  since, — of  the  returning 
savages  drunk  with  blood,  covered  with  reeking  scalps, 
their  bodies  decked  out  with  the  plunder  of  the 
slain.  Of  the  massacring  of  the  prisoners,  what 
words  can  depict  the  awful  finale  to  the  Braddock 
tragedy! 

For  three  long  years  Fort  Duquesne  remained 
in  the  possession  of  the  builders,  and  of  these  years 
we  have  little  record.  The  storm-centre  of  the  war 
swept  to  the  New  England  region,  for  Shirley  had 
failed  to  capture  Niagara  as  Braddock  had  failed  on 
the  Ohio.  In  1758,  however,  a  great  campaign  much 
similar  to  that  of  1755  was  inaugurated  by  the  brilliant 
new  British  Prime  Minister,  William  Pitt.  Again 
Ticonderoga,  Niagara,  and  Duquesne  were  to  be 
assailed.  For  the  subjugation  of  the  Ohio  fortress 
Brigadier-General  John  Forbes  was  chosen,  a  man  in 
every  way  the  opposite  of  Edward  Braddock  except  in 
bravery  and  dogged  persistency. 


The  Earl  of  Chatham. 

From    an   oil    painting  in   the  possession  of  the    Historical  Society   of 

Pennsylvania. 


"-  'p-^ 
J  '^^ 


''5 


Old  French  War  in  the  West  55 

"  We  shall  do  bettei'  another  time"  were  Braddock's 
dying  words  by  Braddock's  Run,  and  the  words 
came  true.  Many  of  the  mistakes  made  in  planning 
Braddock's  expedition  were  corrected  in  planning 
Forbes's  campaign,  especially  in  making  Pennsylvania 
his  headquarters  and  rendezvous.  That  colony,  too, 
awoke  from  its  lethargy  and  provided  men  and  means. 
Forbes  at  the  same  time  took  up  his  task,  though  a 
sick  man  at  the  very  outset,  with  a  wise  consideration 
of  the  difficulties  before  him;  he  depended  upon  the 
colonial  troops  which  Braddock  had  despised  until 
too  late.  Forbes,  too,  had  a  very  large  army  and  also 
had  the  assistance  of  a  brave  and  manly  officer.  Colonel 
Henry  Bouquet,  as  well  as  that  of  the  true  and  tireless 
Washington,  and  the  bold  Armstrong. 

Marching  from  Philadelphia,  Forbes's  entire  army 
numbered  near  seven  thousand  men,  twenty-seven 
hundred  from  Pennsylvania,  sixteen  hundred  from 
Virginia  and  the  South,  twelve  hundred  Highlanders, 
and  a  strong  Royal  American  regiment  officered  by 
Europeans  but  filled  up  largely  with  doughty  Pennsyl- 
vania Dutch.  The  route  was  by  way  of  Carlisle, 
Bedford,  and  Ligonier.  It  was  a  desperate  feat  to 
march  so  great  an  army  over  the  Alleghenies  and 
adequately  supply  it;  but  Forbes's  plan  was  equal 
to  the  occasion,  and,  building  one  fort  after  another, 
he  at  last  reached  Ligonier  early  in  November.  Four 
months  had  been  spent  on  the  way.  No  wonder 
the  Indians  called  Forbes  the  "Head  of  Iron"!  Two 
severe  reverses  here  occurred ;  Grant  was  sent  forward 
to  reconnoitre  the  French  fort  with  eight  hundred 
men;  exceeding  his  orders  in  a  vain  hope  of  glory  he 
was  lured  into  a  running  battle  on  Grant's  Hill  in  the 


56  The  Ohio  River 

present  limits  of  Pittsburg  and  terribly  cut  up.  At 
Ligonier  the  army  was  savagely  attacked;  moreover 
the  weather  now  became  most  unfavorable.  It  was 
determined  to  go  into  winter  quarters  here,  but  re- 
turning spies  soon  brought  word  of  the  hopeless  state 
of  affairs  at  Fort  Duquesne.  Forbes  determined  to 
press  forward  with  as  strong  a  showing  as  possible; 
he  encamped  on  the  night  of  November  24th  on 
Turtle  Creek  during  which  a  severe  explosion  was 
heard  in  the  region  of  the  fort.  As  the  army  drew 
near  on  the  morrow  only  a  column  of  smoke  marked 
the  site  of  Fort  Duquesne;  the  large  magazine  had 
been  exploded  and  the  fort  fired — and  the  French 
had  fled  forever  from  the  Ohio  River. 


'■J 
O 


^, 


Chapter  IV 
One  of  the  Vancruard  of  the  Pioneers 


& 


AS  the  Old  French  War  drew  on  apace,  and  even 
while  it  was  raging,  a  bold,  thin  line  of  pioneers 
was  advancing  from  the  seaboard  into  the 
Alleghenies.  The  Ohio  was  not  the  only  com- 
pany that  had  received  grants  of  land  in  the  West;  a 
fine  fertile  region  on  the  head  tributary  of  the  Great 
Kanawha,  Greenbrier  River,  was  granted  to  the 
"Greenbrier  Company"  in  1751 ;  and  two  years  before 
nearly  a  million  acres  were  granted  to  a  "Loyal 
Company"  beginning  on  the  boundary  line  of  Vir- 
ginia and  North  Carolina  and  running  west  and  north. 
These  grants  turned  people's  attention  thither  and 
thousands  in  Pennsylvania,  Virginia,  Maryland,  and 
the  Carolinas  set  out  for  the  West,  some  for  adventure, 
some  to  seek  new  homes  for  their  large  families,  and 
some  to  speculate.  The  French  War  put  an  end  to 
the  land  companies  but  not  altogether  to  the  pioneer 
movement. 

This  vanguard  drifted  slowly  into  the  mountains 
and  paused  momentarily  at  this  nest-head  of  rivers 
which  arose  here,  flowing  to  the  east  and  to  the  west. 
Two  districts  in  particular  were  notable  resorts  for 
these  bravest  of  adventurers,  one  at  the  head  of  the 

57 


58  The  Ohio  River 

Monongahela  River,  and  the  other  at  the  head  of 
the  Great  Kanawha  River;  on  these  finger-tips  of  the 
Ohio,  the  Monongahela  (and  its  tributaries,  Tygart's 
and  the  Cheat  rivers)  and  the  New  River  fork  of 
the  Great  Kanawha,  were  located  the  first  homes 
built  in  the  Ohio  Basin  by  white  men  other  than 
French. 

The  name  of  the  principal  New  River  settlement 
was  Draper's  Meadows,  situate  in  Pulaski  County, 
now  West  Virginia.  This  smiling  space  of  fertile 
meadow  in  the  dark  recesses  of  the  mountains  was 
settled  before  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century; 
in  1747  the  cabin  of  Adam  Harmon  was  broken  into 
by  Indians  and  his  packs  of  furs  were  stolen;  this, 
it  is  affirmed,  was  the  first  depredation  the  Indians  of 
the  Ohio  committed  in  the  Alleghenies. 

In  the  year  1750  the  Ingles  and  Draper  families, 
pioneers  in  the  Meadows,  were  united  by  the  marriage 
of  Mary  Draper  and  William  Ingles,  aged,  respectively, 
eighteen  and  twenty-one.  Mary  Draper  was  a  sturdy 
specimen  of  frontier  girlhood — the  type  of  womanhood 
which  played  such  a  conspicuous  part  in  the  settling 
and  the  holding  of  the  Ohio  Valley.  "She  could," 
writes  one  of  her  biographers,  "stand  and  jump 
straight  up  nearly  as  high  as  her  head;  she  could 
stand  on  the  ground  beside  her  horse  and  leap  into 
the  saddle  unaided."  Her  husband  was  an  equally 
fine  type  of  the  borderland  pioneer  of  the  day,  and  the 
new  home  in  the  Meadows  was,  we  may  suppose,  as 
happy  a  reality  as  it  always  was  a  cherished  memory; 
yet  the  mountains  loomed  up  near  by — and  the  times 
were  dangerous  as  the  French  War  broke  out.  For 
several  years,   however,   the  settlers   on   New   River 


One  of  the  Vano^uard  of  the  Pioneers        59 


'& 


were  unmolested;  with  the  hopeless  ending  of  Wash- 
ington's Fort  Necessity  campaign  the  western  Indians 
were  won  to  the  side  of  the  French,  and  then  were 
encouraged  to  attack  the  English  frontiers  wherever 
a  curl  of  smoke  gave  evidence  of  encroachment. 
Of  them  all  the  Shawanese  of  the  Scioto  were  the  most 
easily  incited  to  plunder  and  pillage,  and,  in  the  year 
1755,  while  Braddock's  army  was  toiUng  onward 
toward  Fort  Duquesne,  a  band  of  Shawanese  were 
steadily  creeping  up  the  Great  Kanawha  toward  the 
flourishing  Draper's  Meadows  settlement,  containing, 
perhaps,  six  cabins  with  their  surrounding  patches  of 
cleared  land.  They  arrived  there  Sunday,  the  eighth 
of  July — the  day  before  Braddock's  terrible  defeat 
on  the  Monongahela. 

The  descent  of  the  Scioto  warriors  on  the  pioneers 
was  a  complete  and  awful  surprise;  every  member 
of  the  little  company  was  killed,  wounded,  or  captured. 
Colonel  James  Patton,  Mrs.  George  Draper,  Caspar 
Barrier,  and  a  child  of  John  Draper's  were  killed; 
Mrs.  John  Draper  and  James  Cull  were  wounded  and 
captured,  together  with  Mrs.  William  Ingles,  her  two 
young  sons  Thomas  and  George,  and  Henry  Lenard. 
WiUiam  Ingles  was  in  a  field  near  by  and  received  the 
first  intimation  of  the  attack  from  the  smoke  of  the 
burning  buildings;  rushing  toward  them  he  was  seen 
by  the  retreating  savages  and  pursued.  His  one  hope 
of  being  of  assistance  lay  in  his  ability  to  give  warning 
to  other  settlements,  and  accordingly  he  ran  for  his 
life  and  escaped  through  a  shrewd  ruse  by  hiding 
under  the  very  noses  of  his  pursuers  who  passed  him; 
rising  from  his  place  of  concealment  he  took  a  new 
course  and  escaped  with  his  terrible  cry  of  alarm. 


6o  The  Ohio  River 

The  few  pioneers  at  hand  and  their  total  lack  of  arms 
and  ammunition  made  the  quick  formation  of  a  relief 
party  impossible,  and,  in  the  present  case,  delay 
rendered  pursuit  useless. 

The  Indians  hurried  down  New  River  with  their 
plunder  and  their  prey;  Mrs.  Draper's  condition  was 
pitiful,  having  been  shot  through  the  arm  in  attempting 
to  escape  from  her  cabin  with  her  baby  which  was 
killed.  But  if  her  case  was  sad,  what  of  Mary  Ingles? 
Driven  from  her  home  with  two  young  children 
into  the  forests  by  murderous  savages  at  a  most 
critical  hour  of  her  life,  her  situation  was  such  as  to 
win  the  sympathy  of  the  most  heartless  and  make  the 
trials  endured  by  her  fellow-sufferers  seem  light  in 
comparison.  On  the  night  of  the  third  day's  journey, 
under  a  canopy  of  leaves  near  a  dim  fire,  assisted  by 
her  brave  sister-in-law,  one  of  whose  arms  was  tightly 
bandaged,  the  miracle  was  wrought.  And  the  next 
morning,  since  the  Indians  did  not  dare  to  remain  in 
camp  so  near  the  scene  of  their  terrible  attack,  Mrs. 
Ingles  and  the  tiny  stranger  of  a  girl  were  compelled 
to  continue  the  wild  retreat  toward  the  Ohio  River 
on  horse. 

For  forty-odd  miles  the  savages  brought  their 
captives  down  the  eastern  side  of  New  River  and  then 
crossed  to  the  west  side  at  about  the  mouth  of  Indian 
Creek.  Reaching  Bluestone  River  they  ascended  it, 
crossed  Flat  Top  Mountain,  and  descended  Paint 
Creek  to  the  Great  Kanawha. 

Some  of  the  prisoners  [writes  Mr.  John  P.  Hale,  great-grand- 
son of  Mary  Draper,  in  his  Trans- Allegheny  Pioneers]  were 
treated  very  roughly  on  the  route  down,  and  suffered  very  much; 


o 

CO 


o 


'X 
o 


One  of  the  Vanguard  of  the  Pioneers        6i 

but  Mrs.  Ingles,  owing  to  her  delicate  condition,  and  to  her 
having  policy  and  tact  enough  to  simulate  a  reasonable  amount 
of  cheerfulness  and  contentment  under  all  her  trials,  and  to 
make  herself  useful  in  many  ways,  was  treated  with  more 
leniency  and  respectful  consideration  than  any  of  the  others 
She  was  permitted  to  ride  and  to  carry  her  children.  It  was 
made  one  of  her  duties  to  attend  to  and  aid  her  wounded  sister- 
in-law.  The  Indians  instructed  her  to  bathe  and  poultice  the 
broken  arm  with  the  steeped  leaves  of  the  wild  comphry 
plant  and  to  dress  the  wounds  with  a  salve  made  from  the 
comphry  plant  and  deer  fat. 

At  Cabin  Creek,  or  perhaps  Witcher's  Creek  Shoals, 
the  party  crossed  to  the  northeast  side  of  the  Kanawha 
and  stopped  at  the  salt  spring  above  the  mouth  of 
Campbell's  Creek  to  feast  on  game  which  could  be 
obtained  there,  and  to  make  salt.  Oddly  enough 
Mrs.  Ingles's  grandson,  Crocket  Ingles,  made  salt 
within  sight  of  this  lick  a  century  later,  and  her  great- 
grandson,  John  P.  Hale,  the  West  Virginia  historian, 
has  "been  a  salt  manufacturer  for  more  than  thirty 
years,"  he  writes,  "within  a  few  hundred  yards  of 
where  she  first  made  salt  in  July,  1755."  Little  did 
this  first  white  woman  to  make  salt  west  of  the  Alle- 
gheny Mountains  dream  of  the  tremendous  changes 
five-score  years  would  bring! 

From  the  salt  springs  the  party  proceeded  at  last 
to  the  "River  of  Many  White  Caps,  "  and  if  we  imagine 
Mary  Ingles  to  be  on  horse,  she,  first  of  all  white 
women,  looked  upon  the  great  river  of  the  West. 
As  a  type  of  the  brave  borderland  women  who  played 
such  a  part  in  redeeming  the  Ohio  Valley  to  civilization 
this  first  heroic  woman  to  set  eyes  upon  it  deserves 
special  mention.  She  had  suffered  patiently  the 
most  marvellous  sacrifices  and  the  most  heartrending. 


62  The  Ohio  River 

exhaustive  pains.  Yet  through  it  all  she  showed  a 
splendid  patience  and  bravery^winning  the  admira- 
tion of  her  cruel  enemies  and  triumphing  nobly  in  her 
efforts  to  give  cheer  and  hope  to  her  companions. 
If  the  great  river  valley,  into  which  the  party  now 
entered,  was  to  be  filled  with  women  so  brave,  so 
thoughtfully  tireless,  as  Mary  Ingles,  there  was  no 
doubt  as  to  the  future;  the  men  of  the  valley  would 
be  fired  by  such  examples  to  a  patriotism  and  devotion 
the  like  of  which  had  never  been  seen  on  this  western 
continent.  I  would  like  a  picture  of  this  pale,  wan, 
patient  mother,  astride  a  gaunt  pony,  bearing  in 
her  arms  the  infant  hastened  to  life  by  the  bloody 
murders  which  its  mother  was  compelled  to  witness, 
as  she  looked  with  half  hopeless  eyes  upon  the  sombre 
majesty  of  the  virgin  Ohio;  in  that  picture  I  could 
read  the  meaning  of  those  tears  and  those  anxious 
vigils;  in  that  picture  I  could  find  a  reason  for  the 
sudden  transformation  of  a  dark  wilderness  into  the 
bright  and  glorious  life  that  is  to-day  seen  along 
that  selfsame  river,  as  though  a  magician's  wand 
had  created  it  from  the  dropping  petals  of  a  buckeye 
blossom.  If  women  such  as  this  were  entering  the 
valley  through  those  far-away  finger-tips,  it  was  of 
more  importance  than  ever  Celoron's  leaden  plates, 
or  the  echoing  cry  of  his  men-at-arms,  "Vive  la  Roi, " 
as  they  posted  the  King's  arms  to  the  Ohio  trees;  it 
was  of  more  moment,  even,  than  the  marching  armies 
of  Braddock  and  Forbes.  For  the  army  of  pioneers 
toiling  behind  the  vanguard  in  which  Mrs.  Ingles  stands 
so  conspicuous  was  to  effect  a  conquest  greater  and 
better  than  any  other  army  could  win,  as  if  to  prove 
that  on  the  new  continent,  too,  the  pruning-hook  and 


One  of  the  Vanguard  of  the  Pioneers         63 


'& 


ploughshare    were   more    powerful  weapons  than  the 
musket  and  broadsword. 

Reaching  the  Ohio,  the  Indians  followed  the  river 
downward  to  their  towns,  described  by  both  C^loroe 
and  Gist,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Scioto  River.  Here, 
in  honor  of  the  success  of  the  marauding  party,  a 
festival  was  held;  all  the  captives  except  Mary  Ingles 
were  compelled  to  "run  the  gauntlet,"  to  the  fiendish 
delight  of  the  town.  Then  came  the  awful  moment 
of  dividing  the  spoils ;  Mrs.  Ingles  and  infant  were  kept 
at  the  Shawanese  town;  Mrs.  Draper  was  taken  to 
near  the  present  Chillicothe,  on  the  Scioto  River; 
Thomas  Ingles,  aged  four,  was  taken  to  Detroit,  and 
his  brother  George,  aged  two,  was  also  taken  into  the 
interior,  the  exact  point  not  being  recorded.  Left 
alone  with  her  baby,  the  forlorn  woman,  first  of  her 
race  to  make  her  home  on  the  banks  of  the  Ohio, 
took  up  the  tasks  that  fell  to  her  lot  with  the  same 
patient  bravery  she  had  shown  from  the  beginning. 

Shortly  after  this  division  of  the  prisoners  [writes  her  great- 
grandson]  some  French  traders  came  into  the  Indian  town  for 
the  purpose  of  trading  and  bartering  with  the  Indians.  They 
had,  among  other  things,  a  stock  of  check  shirting,  and  as  check 
shirts  were  in  great  demand  among  the  Indians,  and  Mrs.  Ingles 
a  good  sewer,  she  was  put  to  making  check  shirts.  Her  pro- 
ficiency in  this  line  so  increased  her  value  and  importance  to  them 
that  she  was  treated  with  unusual  leniency  and  consideration. 
When  a  shirt  would  be  finished  and  deUvered  to  its  owner,  the 
buck  would  stick  it  on  the  end  of  a  pole,  and  run  through  the 
town  exhibiting  it,  and  singing  the  praises  of  the  "heap  good 
white  squaw. " 

However,  Mrs.  Ingles  was  not  so  valuable  to  the 
Indians  as  a  seamstress  that  she  could  be  spared  from 


64  The  Ohio  River 

the  all-important  work  of  making  salt;  accordingly, 
with  her  baby,  she  left  with  the  salt-making  party 
for  the  Big  Bone  Lick  in  Boone  County,  Kentucky, 
one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  below  the  Scioto  and 
three  miles  back  from  the  Ohio.  This  is  the  point 
where  the  famous  mastodon  bones  have  been  found, 
the  lick  having  been  the  resort  of  animals  of  all  kinds, 
as  well  as  of  the  Indians.  How  long  the  poor  captive 
had  been  planning  to  effect  her  escape  is  not  known, 
but  now  she  determined  upon  that  desperate  adven- 
ture. The  Indians  brought  with  them  an  old  captive 
Dutch  woman  with  whom  Mrs.  Ingles  became  ac- 
quainted and  to  whom  she  divulged  her  secret  hope 
of  escape.  The  two  planned  together,  the  great 
difficulty  being  for  Mrs.  Ingles  to  decide  whether  to 
take  or  to  leave  her  babe.  At  last  she  determined 
that  for  many  reasons  it  was  safer  to  leave  it  than  to 
carry  it  away  since  there  was  little  enough  hope  of  the 
women  succeeding  in  their  attempt;  if  they  escaped 
recapture  they  would  be  likely  to  starve  or  miss  their 
way  in  the  long  journey  of  nearly  seven  hundred  miles 
to  Draper's  Meadows.  Few  men,  even,  could  dare 
that  journey  without  food  or  fire-arms  with  which 
to  procure  it.  Yet  Mrs.  Ingles  was  determined,  and 
her  companion  was  a  willing  comrade  in  the  plan, 
though  at  first  she  honestly  pointed  out  the  hopeless- 
ness of  the  scheme  and  its  probable  termination. 

It  was  late  one  afternoon  when  the  women  slipped 
away  from  the  Lick,  making  toward  the  Ohio  River, 
which  they  reached  and  followed  far  into  the  night; 
each  carried  a  blanket  and  a  tomahawk;  Mary  Ingles 
exchanged  a  dull  one  for  a  sharper  one  with  an  unsus- 
pecting Frenchman  who  was  cracking  walnuts  on  one 


One  of  the  Vanguard  of  the  Pioneers       65 

of  the  big  mammoth  bones  now  so  famous.  The 
Indians  did  not  discover  their  absence  until  night  and 
finally,  after  firing  some  guns  thinking  they  were  lost, 
gave  them  up — never  dreaming  that  they  had  pur- 
posel}^  gone  away.  So  the  very  daring  of  the  plan 
was  in  its  favor  and  the  women  escaped  pursuit. 
Then  followed  the  long,  slow  journey  up  the  river, 
across  the  tributary  creeks  and  aroimd  the  dark, 
loathesome  piles  of  drift  and  flood-plunder  that 
covered  the  banks.  At  times  they  were  compelled  to 
make  long  detours  but  they  kept  the  river  ever  in 
sight  and  came  to  it  again  farther  on.  The  danger 
of  recapture  kept  them  from  traversing  such  paths 
as  they  found  except  at  nignt,  and,  without  means 
of  securing  game,  they  subsisted  on  bark,  leaves,  and 
berries;  as  a  consequence  their  clothes  were  soon  in 
shreds  and  their  faces  thin  with  hunger.  At  last 
they  reached  the  present  site  of  Covington,  opposite 
Cincinnati,  and  crossed  Licking  River  near  its  entrance 
into  the  Ohio;  toiling  slowly  up  the  great  lonely 
valley  they  passed  the  present  sites  of  Foster,  Augusta* 
Maysville,  Concord,  and  Vanceburg,  until  they  came 
opposite  the  Shawanese  town  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Scioto.  The  portion  of  the  settlement  which  in 
Celoron's  day  lay  on  the  Kentucky  side  of  the  Ohio 
had  now  dwindled  down  to  a  single  cabin  surrounded 
by  a  field  of  com;  almost  exhausted  and  fearful  of 
detection,  the  women  lay  in  the  cabin  to  rest  and 
feast  upon  the  com.  The  next  morning  an  old  Indian 
pony  was  found  in  the  corn-field;  appropriating  this 
animal,  the  women  departed  with  renewed  hope, 
carrying  as  large  a  load  of  com  as  was  possible;  as 
they  went  they  could  plainly  see  the  Indians  in  the 


66  The  Ohio  River 

village — Mrs.  Ingles's  "home" — across  the  river,  and 
during  the  day  they  almost  ran  into  a  party  of  Indians 
out  hunting  but  escaped  notice  by  hiding.  The  pony 
wore  a  bell  on  its  neck  which  the  old  Dutch  woman 
wisely  removed — and  which  she  carried  throughout 
the  remainder  of  the  eventful  journey. 

The  first  great  hardship  was  encountered  at  the 
Big  Sandy  River,  now  the  dividing  line  between 
West  Virginia  and  Kentucky;  the  river  was  too  wide 
and  deep  to  ford  or  swim,  and  a  long  detour  was 
necessary  up  the  west  bank  to  a  crossing  place  and 
back  on  the  other  side  to  the  Ohio.  The  crossing 
was  made  on  a  great  pile  of  driftwood  which  stretched 
from  one  side  to  the  other;  it  was  an  easy  bridge 
for  the  women  but  the  old  pony  made  a  misstep  and 
fell;  its  four  legs  went  through  the  drift  and  it  lay 
helpless  on  its  belly,  frantically  pawing.  Do  what 
they  could  the  women  were  unable  to  assist  the  animal, 
and,  fearing  to  remain  longer  in  such  a  conspicuous 
place,  they  were  at  last  compelled  to  go  on  and  abandon 
the  poor  beast  to  its  fate.  This  discouraged  Mrs. 
Ingles's  companion  almost  beyond  the  endurance  point, 
and  from  now  on  the  former  was  compelled  not  only 
to  bear  her  fatigue  and  mental  distress  but  also  the 
even  more  wearing  burden  of  abuse  from  the  Dutch 
woman  for  having  "lured"  her  to  her  death  in  the 
forests.  Yet  the  two  toiled  on;  they  bound  strips 
from  their  dresses  on  their  bruised  feet  with  thongs  of 
the  leather- wood  shrubs,  and  gathered  from  the  dark 
forest  about  them  anything  that  could  be  eaten — 
with  almost  reckless  indifference  as  to  its  effect;  on 
one  occasion  they  found  on  a  drift-pile  a  partly  decom- 
posed deer's  head  discarded  by  Indian  hunters,  and 


1  ^iMM 

If 


L\ 


C 


O 


rt 

■4-J 

bD 
O 


One  of  the  Vanguard  of  the  Pioneers       67 

feasted  on  it.  Reaching,  at  last,  the  Great  Kanawha, 
they  turned  from  the  Ohio,  and  began  the  latter  portion 
of  their  terrible  march.  Lack  of  food  continually 
turned  the  old  Dutch  woman's  head  and  on  two 
occasions,  in  a  crazed  condition,  she  viciously  attacked 
Mrs.  Ingles,  who  stood  her  off  with  her  last  grain  of 
strength  until  the  frenzy  had  passed.  Journeying 
up  the  Kanawha  by  the  present  site  of  Charleston 
the  two  entered  at  last  the  most  desperate  part  of  all 
the  terrible  trip — the  grand  canyon  of  New  River 
from  the  Gauley  to  the  Greenbrier.  By  walking  and 
climbing  and  creeping  and  crawling  the  two  accom- 
plished what  the  tourist,  looking  down  fifteen  hundred 
feet  from  his  Pullman  window  to-day,  might  well 
consider  the  most  marvellous  of  feats ;  at  one  time  Mrs. 
Ingles  in  despair  of  her  life  kept  her  crazed  companion, 
who  was  far  stronger  than  she,  from  killing  her  only 
by  soberly  proposing  to  draw  lots  to  see  which  should 
die  that  the  other  might  live;  the  lot  fell  on  herself, 
but  by  the  time  it  was  settled  the  old  woman  seemed 
to  come  to  her  senses.  But  additional  struggles  with 
the  cliffs  brought  the  craze  upon  her  again  and,  at  last, 
in  the  lonely  mountain  valley,  the  two  comrades  of  so 
many  hardships  were  clasped  in  a  life  and  death 
struggle.  Weakness,  only,  kept  the  old  woman  from 
killing  Mrs.  Ingles;  the  latter  at  last  eluded  the  feeble 
blows  and  ran  to  a  place  of  safety ;  finding,  by  accident, 
a  canoe  next  day,  she  proceeded  by  this  new  and 
restful  means  of  locomotion  until  rapids  impeded  her 
course;  then  she  left  the  canoe  and  proceeded  alone 
on  the  opposite  side  of  the  river  from  her  demented 
companion.  The  hardest  mile  of  the  seven  hundred 
she  had  traversed  was  the  last  mile  of  them  all ;  reaching 


68  The  Ohio  River 

the  towering  cliff,  Anvil  Rock,  she  sought  to  wade 
around  it;  failing  in  this  she  slowly  dragged  herself 
straight  up  over  the  rocks  that  stand  two  hundred 
and  eighty  feet  above  the  river,  and  came  down  on 
the  other  side  utterly  exhausted  into  a  corn-field 
owned  and  occupied  by  Adam  Harmon;  it  luckily 
happened  that  the  pioneer  heard  her  call  and  found 
her  insensible  on  the  ground.  Carried  next  day  to  her 
home,  the  meeting  with  her  husband,  who  had  only 
just  returned  from  a  journey  to  the  Cherokee  Indians 
in  the  hope  of  hearing  of  her  through  them,  was  more 
than  affecting. 

Nor  can  the  story  of  this  marvellous  experience  of 
womanly  fortitude  end  without  a  happy  touch  of  humor 
as  well  as  this  touch  of  joy;  one  of  Mrs.  Ingles's  first 
conscious  acts  was  to  hasten  off  a  party  of  pioneers  in 
search  of  her  unfortunate  companion  whose  suffering 
had  gone  further  beyond  the  point  of  endurance  than 
her  own.  But  the  "old  Dutch  woman,"  as  she  is 
remembered,  had  also  fared  well  since  the  separation; 
having  fallen  upon  an  abandoned  hunter's  cabin  she 
had  found  food,  an  old  pair  of  leathern  riding  breeches, 
and  another  "critter,"  or  old  horse.  Recovering  her 
strength  and  spirits  in  a  day  or  two,  she  donned  her 
riding  habit,  of  which  she  was  in  need,  and  mounting 
her  horse  (to  which  she  fastened  the  bell  taken  from 
the  pony  left  on  the  dead-wood  in  Big  Sandy),  the  old 
lady  came  along  the  mountain  trail  hallooing  at  the 
top  of  her  voice.  Thus  she  was  soon  found,  and 
brought,  in  all  her  glory,  to  the  Draper  settlement. 
Despite  their  trouble,  the  two  women  met  with  utmost 
joy,  realizing  now  what  each  owed  the  other. 

Thus  came  and  went  the  first  white  woman  on  the 


One  of  the  Vanguard  of  the  Pioneers       69 

Ohio;  and  though  Mary  Ingles  has  left  us  little  in- 
formation as  to  the  appearance  of  the  valley  and  its 
sweeping  river,  her  experiences  as  a  whole  make  it 
possible  for  us  to  imagine  the  picture  more  clearly 
perhaps  than  even  the  definitive  but  formal  reports 
of  Celoron  and  Christopher  Gist.  From  her  intensely 
human  story  as  it  has  come  down  to  us  from  her  lips, 
we  seem  to  know  better  what  the  primeval  valley  was 
like;  we  see  her  tangled  pathw^ay  through  all  those 
hundred  miles  along  the  Ohio's  southeastern  shore, 
we  feel  the  density  of  the  shades  and  see  the  running 
rivers  and  the  fantastic  piles  of  driftwood  strewn 
up  and  down  them  at  the  caprice  of  mad  waters  long 
since  run  to  the  sea. 

How  much  and  how  little  has  been  written  of  the 
western  wilderness  through  which  the  Ohio  flowed 
and  in  which  Mary  Ingles  and  her  old  comrade  marched ! 
For  though  here  and  there  and  everywhere  the  forest 
is  mentioned,  where  can  one  turn  to  read  a  clear 
description  of  it? 

What  may  well  be  called  the  Black  Forest  of 
America  stretched  from  the  Alleghenies  to  what  is 
now  central  Kentucky  and  Indiana;  a  line  drawn 
along  the  summit  of  the  Laurel  and  Chestnut  ranges 
of  the  mountains  will  mark,  in  a  loose  way,  the  eastern 
boundary  of  this  great  forest,  and  a  line  drawn  through 
Lexington,  Kentucky,  and  Indianapolis,  Indiana,  will 
not  be  very  far  from  its  western  boundary.  Speaking 
generally,  a  "great  woods"  lay  between  these  limits; 
to  the  eastward  the  forests  w^ere,  of  course,  very  dense 
too,  but  they  were  broken  up  there  by  what  were  known 
as  glades  in  which  the  giant  trees  gave  way  to  long 
grasses  where  deer  revelled  and  where  pioneers  first 


70  The  Ohio  River 

settled;  to  the  westward  of  the  Black  Forest  lay  the 
prairies,  which  grew  more  frequent  and  larger  in 
dimensions  as  you  reached  the  Wabash  country  and 
then  the  Mississippi  River.  Between  the  glades  and 
the  prairies  lay  this  Black  Forest;  the  Ohio  River 
rose  in  the  glades  or  "glady  country, "  flowed  through 
the  Black  Forest,  and  then  through  the  prairies  to  the 
Mississippi.  The  Allegheny  River  was  forest-born 
and  forest-bred  from  source  to  mouth,  but  the  Monon- 
gahela's  waters  came  from  the  "Great  Glades  of  the 
Yoh,"  the  Sandy  Creek  Glades,  Great  and  Little 
Meadows.  Speaking  loosely,  the  Ohio  River  was 
forest-bound  .from  Olean,  New  York,  and  Morgantown, 
Pennsylvania,  to  about  Cincinnati,  Ohio;  the  forests 
were  dense  along  the  immediate  river  below  this,  but 
at  about  this  point  the  Ohio  entered  that  portion  of 
the  old  Southwest  known  as  the  "Barrens  "  of  Kentucky 
and  the  prairies  of  Indiana  and  Illinois.  Generally 
speaking,  the  Ohio  Country, ^  as  it  was  known  in  early 
pioneer  days,  may  be  divided  therefore  into  three 
parts,  the  Glades,  the  Black  Forest,  and  the  Prairies. 

The  Black  Forest  has  most  frequently  been  char- 
acterized as  a  "pathless  wilderness"  and  a  "howling 
wilderness";  these  words  probably  have  occurred 
more  frequently  than  any  others  in  American  historical 
writing  touching  the  subject  of  the  western  forest 
land.  Both  expressions  are  misleading  if  not  inher- 
ently false;  neither  Mrs.  Ingles  nor  any  other  traveller 
in  the  old  Black  Forest  ever  thought  of  it  as  a  "path- 
less" or  a  "howling"  wilderness.     Of  the  prominent 

»  As  late  as  the  Revolutionary  War  the  word  "Ohio"  was  printed  on 
both  sides  of  the  Ohio  River  on  Pownall's  Map  and  covered  wha*.  is  now 
West  Virginia,  Kentucky,  Ohio,  Indiana,  and  Illinois. 


u 

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O 

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15 


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One  of  the  Vaneuard  of  the  Pioneers 


'C3 


characteristics  of  the  old  forest  the  two  perhaps  most 
conspicuous  were  the  paths  through  it  and  the  silence 
that  reigned  over  it.  There  were  probably  as  many- 
paths  in  Ohio  in  1775  (eighteen  years  previous  to  the 
first  white  settlement  in  the  State),  on  which  a  man 
could  travel  horseback  at  a  rate  of  five  miles  an  hour, 
as  there  are  railway  lines  in  that  State  to-day.  And, 
in  general,  where  there  is  a  railway  to-day  there  was  a 
path  a  century  and  a  quarter  ago.  True,  it  was  not 
"good  going"  over  any  of  these  "roads,"  but  the 
picture  usually  described  and  drawn  of  pioneers 
cutting  a  way  through  a  well-nigh  impenetrable  net- 
work of  undergrowth  is  a  pure  figment  of  the  imagi- 
nation. In  the  Diary  of  the  Reverend  David  McClure, 
who,  in  1772,  went  from  Pittsburg  to  central  Ohio, 
we  find,  for  instance,  this  interesting  sentence:  "The 
woods,"  he  wrote  one  day,  "were  clear  from  under- 
brush, &  the  oaks  &  black  walnut  &  other  timber  do 
not  grow  very  compact,  &  there  is  scarcely  anything 
to  incommode  a  traveller  in  riding,  almost  in  any 
direction,  in  the  woods  of  the  Ohio."  The  most 
impressive  characteristic  of  the  old  forest  was  this 
absence  of  undergrowth;  this  could  not  live  without 
sunlight,  and  the  sunlight  could  not  pierce  through 
the  dense  overgrowth.  This  density  of  the  tree  tops 
was,  also,  an  impressive  feature  of  the  old  forests, 
since  almost  every  tree  was  loaded  with  vines,  especially 
those  of  the  wild  grape;  these  vines  revelled  in  the 
sunshine  found  at  the  tree  tops  and  ran  riot  from  one 
tree  to  another  binding  them  together  with  cords  as 
strong  as  steel  hawsers.  In  hundreds  of  cases,  before 
the  pioneers  could  cut  down  the  trees,  boys  were  sent 
up  to  cut  away  the  vines  which  attached  each  tree 


72  The  Ohio  River 

to  its  neighbor.  All  this  rendered  travelling  in  the 
woods  far  less  laborious  than  is  usually  conceived. 
The  Ohio  Valley  was  covered  with  a  network  of  deer 
paths,  buffalo  roads,  and  Indian  trails;  many  of  the 
paths  and  trails  were  "blind"  (overgrown),  as  the 
pioneers  said,  but  many  were  used  too  much  to  become 
impassable;  the  buffalo  roads  were  great,  wide  high- 
ways over  which,  had  they  been  smooth,  several 
wagons  could  have  proceeded  abreast.  Mrs.  Ingles 
in  coming  up  the  Ohio  Valley  in  1755  was  in  danger 
while  on  the  many  trails  which  she  met  and  followed, 
some  of  which  she  even  abandoned  for  safety's  sake. 
It  is  difficult  to  tell  just  what  a  "howling  wil- 
derness" might  be  unless  it  be  a  wilderness  infested 
by  beasts  that  howl;  wolves  howled  in  the  old  Ohio 
Valley  but  the  forests  as  a  rule  were  marvellously 
silent — a  silence  intensified  tenfold  when  now  and 
then  the  howl  of  a  hungry  wolf  broke  its  deathly 
reign.  But  wolves  could  run  as  well  as  howl;  and  I 
believe  (after  studying  several  volumes  relating  solely 
to  pioneer  history)  that  there  was  no  more  danger, 
so  far  as  the  animals  of  the  Black  Forest  were  con- 
cerned, in  a  journey  through  it  a  century  and  more 
ago  than  there  is  from  bears  and  wolves  now  in  the 
same  region.  Rattlesnakes  there  were  and  are;  these 
being  more  numerous  were  more  dangerous;  a  bull 
buffalo,  it  seems,  would  dispute  the  right  of  way  on  a 
narrow  trail  with  the  traveller.  Beyond  rattlesnakes 
and  copperheads  and  an  egotistical  bull  buffalo  does 
pioneer  literature  show  another  real  danger  from  wild 
animals  in  this  howling  wilderness?  A  wounded  bear 
would  fight  but  never  unless  wounded;  you  could 
not  drag  a  bear's  cubs  from  the  den  without  an  argu- 


t/3 

c 

T3 


CJ 


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*'Or 


One  of  the  Vanguard  of  the  Pioneers       73 

ment  with  the  mother;  but  you  might  pull  a  wolf's 
whelps  from  the  mother's  side  and  the  latter  could 
usually  be  relied  upon  to  do  no  more  than  show  her 
teeth  and  snarl.  Were  it  not  for  casting  doubt  upon 
another  of  our  American  legends  it  would  be  in  place 
to  refer  to  General  Putnam  here.  The  birds  of  the 
forest  came  only  with  the  white  man;  the  "howling 
wilderness"  knew  nothing  of  the  chattering  of  these 
winged  habitans,  though  parrots  are  known  to  have 
been  common  in  Kentucky,  and  the  vast  flocks  of 
pigeons  shut  out  the  sun  when  they  passed  and  blighted 
the  trees  on  which  they  spent  a  night.  The  bees 
came  with  man — or  just  slightly  in  advance;  they 
were  unknown  in  the  "howling  wilderness."  Chat- 
tering squirrels  were  numerous  and,  later,  very  detri- 
mental to  pioneer  corn-fields;  there  were  no  crows  or 
blackbirds  in  the  primeval  forests  to  ruin  the  first 
corn-fields  ;  wolves  were  exceedingly  numerous  but 
died  out  with  inexplicable  rapidity,  as  Dr.  Dod- 
ridge  thought  by  hydrophobia;  there  are  instances 
on  record  where  pioneers  were  bitten  by  wolves 
suffering  from  rabies.  Except  in  such  an  instance 
perhaps  no  one  was  ever  harmed  by  a  wolf  except  a 
wounded  one.  Young  wolves  were  frequently  carried 
home  alive  over  a  pioneer's  shoulder.  Eagles  and 
buzzards  were  very  common.  In  McClure's  Diary, 
previously  quoted,  one  or  two  passages  concern  the 
wild  animals  and  game;  on  September  16,  1772,  he 
writes : 

I  slept  but  little  this  night,  being  kept  awake  by  the  howling 
of  Wolves.  It  was  the  first  time  I  had  ever  heard  their  nightly 
dolorous  yells.  They  came  near  our  encampment  ;  but  the  sight 
of  the  fire  kept  them  off,  had  they  been  disposed  to  attack  us. 


74  The  Ohio  River 

On  the  day  following  the  traveller  reached  the  Little 
Beaver  Creek. 

In  the  middle  of  the  Creek  [he  wrote]  a  small  flock  of  wild 
geese  were  swimming,  on  the  bank  sat  a  large  flock  of  Turkies, 
&  the  wild  pigeons  covered  one  or  two  trees ;  &  all  being  within 
musket  shot  we  had  our  choice  for  a  supper.  My  Interpreter 
chose  the  Turkies  and  killed  three  at  one  shot. 

Writes  another  early  traveller: 

I  cannot  pretend  that  wild  turkeys  differ  in  any  striking 
manner  from  the  domestic  ones  I  have  everywhere  seen,  except 
the  length  of  their  wings,  their  superior  plumage,  their  attitude 
and  lively  expression  in  walking.  .  .  .  They  are  migratory. 
They  winter  to  the  southward  and  return  in  the  spring  to  the 
deepest  recesses  of  the  woods,  where  they  construct  their  nests 
with  such  care  and  concealment,  that  few  instances  ever  occur 
of  the  eggs  or  young  being  found.  Where  eggs  have  been 
obtained  and  hatched  under  a  domestic  turkey,  the  young 
shew  great  disposition  to  thrive  and  remain  about  the  house 
very  contentedly  till  their  first  spring,  when  they  rise,  without 
indicating  a  previous  talent  for  flying,  into  the  air,  take  a  few 
circles  around  the  heads  of  their  old  friends  and  make  for  a 
wilderness  whence  they  never  more  return. 

Wildcats,  panthers,  and  catamounts  were  known 
to  make  trouble;  when  very  hungry  they  would 
attack  a  lonely  traveller,  though  well-authenticated 
instances  of  this  are  very  difficult  to  find,  whereas 
testimony  of  pioneers  scaring  wildcats  away  with 
whips  and  of  the  unparalleled  cowardice  of  panthers 
are  common. 

It  would  probably  not  be  far  from  the  truth,  then, 
to  say  that  the  deadly  snakes  were  the  only  occupants 
of  the  primeval  forest  that  were  distinctly  dangerous. 
The  warmth  of  the  camp  and  cabin  fire  universally 


One  of  the  Vanguard  of  the  Pioneers        75 

attracted  reptiles  as  well  as  that  afforded  even  by 
blankets  spread  upon  the  ground.  To  the  Indian  the 
rattlesnake  and  copperhead  were  life-long  horrors; 
this  is  emphasized  by  that  attention  given  by  their 
priests  and  magicians  to  snake  charming,  snake  danc- 
ing, and  antidotes  for  snake  poisoning.  The  observant 
traveller,  Ashe,  while  making  an  inland  tour  up  the 
Muskingum  River  from  the  Ohio  in  1806  describes 
the  protection  given  him  from  snakes  by  his  Indian 
guide.  Cuff: 

I  also  had  to  renew  the  fire,  and  suffer  Cuff  to  perform  certain 
rites  and  incantations,  in  the  manner  of  his  country,  and  which 
had  the  faculty  of  checking  the  advances  of  snakes.  He 
expressed  these  offices  by  stalking  several  times  around  our 
tent.  His  gesticulation  was  strong  and  his  cries  horrible. 
He  also  uttered  some  barbarous  words;  described  a  circle  on 
each  round  with  the  end  of  a  stick,  and  after  shedding  certain 
leaves  on  the  circle,  he  concluded  with  three  more  infernal  yells; 
and  then  under  a  decided  impression  or  strong  conviction  of 
safety,  cast  himself  near  me  on  his  berth.  .  .  .  the  simple  action 
of  drawing  a  line  with  a  black  ash  stick,  and  strewing  on  the 
line  some  leaves  of  the  same  tree,  is  known  to  be  entirely  sufficient 
to  hinder  any  snake  from  crossing  the  line,  and  to  deter  him 
from  interrupting  anything  within  side  of  it.  So  great  is 
their  terror  to  this  timber  that  they  are  never  known  to 
inhabit  where  it  grows;  and  if  a  branch  of  black  ash  be  sud- 
denly cast  before  a  rattlesnake,  apprehension  and  fear  in- 
stantly seize  him;  his  rattle  ceases;  his  passion  subsides;  and, 
grovelling,  timid,  yet  disquiet,  he  takes  a  large  circuit  to  pass 
the  branch,  or  more  probably,  entirely  retires.  .  .  .  When 
the  priests'  [sorcerers']  hands  and  bodies  are  washed  in  a  decoc- 
tion of  the  black  ash  leaves  or  trunk,  the  snakes  will  wreathe 
about  them  in  a  kind  of  suffering  and  terror,  but  never  attemot 
to  bite.  .  .  .  the  stick  and  leaves  employed  by  Cuff  were  of  the 
black  ash,  which  he  purposely  brought  out  of  the  low  woods  for 
our  protection. 


76  The  Ohio  River 

If  any  reader  of  this  volume  can  cite  an  instance 
in  which  a  resident  or  traveller  in  the  old  Ohio  Valley 
was  harmed  by  any  wild  animal,  unprovoked,  he  will 
confer  a  favor  on  the  present  writer  by  communicating 
the  facts  to  him.  Wild  dogs  can  hardly  come  under 
this  title;  dogs  that  wandered  away  or  were  lost  or 
abandoned  became  savage  animals  in  a  very  short 
time.  On  the  other  hand,  they  became  tamed  again 
with  equal  rapidity,  and  in  a  wild  condition  would 
never  make  an  attacked  unprovoked. 

Of  the  forests  of  the  Ohio  a  German  surgeon, 
Johann  D.  Shopf,  left  the  following  description  dated 
the  year  after  the  Revolutionary  War,  in  which  he 
saw  service  in  the  ranks  of  the  German  mercenaries  : 

On  various  journeys  beyond  the  Allegheny  we  had  the  oppor- 
tunity to  observe  the  excellence  and  the  abundant  productiveness 
of  the  soil  in  its  original  undisturbed  state.  The  native  plants 
had  a  luxuriant,  rich  look,  and  grew  much  stronger  and  larger 
than  is  their  habit  elsewhere.  In  a  newly  planted  and  unfer- 
tilized garden  there  stood  stalks  of  common  sunflowers  which 
measured  not  less  than  twenty  feet  in  height  and  six  inches 
in  diameter  and  were  almost  like  wood.  In  the  forests  were 
beeches,  chestnuts,  sassafras,  tulip  trees,  wild  cherry  trees, 
red  maples,  sugar  maples,  black  walnuts,  several  species  of 
hickory,  different  kinds  of  oak,  sweet  gum,  and  other  trees 
known  on  the  coast,  but  which  were  bigger  and  finer  here. 
The  forests  are  mostly  quite  free  from  underbrush,  which  is 
good  for  the  hunter  and  traveller  alike.  We  were  shown,  as 
a  quite  unknown  sort,  several  trees  which  exactly  resembled 
the  Gleditsia  triacanthos,  but  had  no  thorns.  Among  the 
rarer  trees  are  the  papaws,  which  flourish  only  in  damp,  rich, 
black  soil,  often  named  for  them  papaw  soil.  They  are  slender 
trees  with  smooth  white  bark  and  handsome  foliage.  Their 
smooth  egg-shaped  fruit  is  not  unpleasant  when  it  is  over-ripe, 
though  not  to  every  one's  taste.  They  have  a  rind  and  leaf 
somewhat  like  a  pineapple,  but  a  disagreeable,  repulsive  odor. 


An  Early  Resident  of  Pittsburg. 
From  a  statue  by  T.  A.  Mills  in  the  Carnegie  Museum. 


%. 


-"/^:.' 


One  of  the  Vanguard  of  the  Pioneers        ^^ 

The  sugar  maple  is  constantly  used  by  the  inhabitants  of 
this  region,  because  the  freight  makes  ordinary  sugar  too  dear 
for  them.  The  tree  occurs  more  frequently  in  the  mountains 
than  on  the  coast,  and  here  and  there  in  the  forest  are  to  be  seen 
spouts  and  troughs  in  which  the  sap  is  collected.  As  is  well 
known,  the  Indians  also  use  it  and  boil  it  down  on  the  spot. 
Others  make  it  for  sale,  at  one-and-a-half  to  two  Pennsylvania 
shiUings  a  pound.  It  is  usually  brown,  rather  dirty  and  sticky, 
but  by  frequent  refining  is  made  to  look  more  appetizing.^ 
A  native  tea  is  prepared  from  the  leaves  of  the  red-root  (Ceano- 
thus  americana)  which  really  is  not  bad,  and  may  even  be  com- 
pared with  the  minor  varieties  of  the  bohea  tea.  Jonathan 
Plummer,  of  Washington  county  on  the  Monongahela,  prepared 
alone  during  the  war  more  than  i,ooo  pounds  of  this  tea  and 
sold  it  for  from  seven-and-a-half  to  ten  Pennsylvania  shillings  a 
pound.  His  manner  of  preparing  it  he  kept  secret;  probably 
he  dried  the  leaves  in  the  sun  or  in  iron  vessels  over  a  slow  fire. 
With  more  careful,  neater  and  better  preparation,  it  would 
perhaps  be  even  more  palatable  than  it  is.  At  the  beginning  of 
the  war,  on  account  of  general  prohibition  and  enthusiastic 
patriotism,  the  importation  of  Chinese  teas  was  rendered  difficult 
for  some  time,  and  everywhere  they  tried  to  discover  substitutes 
from  domestic  growths.  This  shrub  was  found  the  most  ser- 
viceable and  its  use  still  continues  in  remote  regions.  Along 
the  coast  however,  this  patriotic  tea  was  less  used,  and  in  the 
mountains  the  now  cheaper  foreign  tea  will  soon  drive  it  out  of 
many  houses.     The  use  of  tea  is  on  the  whole  quite  common. 

Besides  the  common  and  well-known  varieties  of  the  wild 
American  grape,  there  is  on  the  high  and  sandy  banks  of  the 
Ohio  a  particular  species  with  a  low  and  bushy  stock,  bearing 
a  small,  round,  black,  sweet  grape,  which  I  have  seen  nowhere 
else.  Ginseng  and  both  varieties  of  snakeroot  are  common 
and  are  carefully  gathered.  The  other  medicinal  plants  are 
the  Collinsonia,  Veronica,  Virginica,  Lobelia  syphilitica,  Aralia 
racemosa,    Asclepias    tuberosa,    Aristolochia    frutescens,    etc., 

'  More  detailed  information  concerning  it  is  to  be  found  in  the  descrip- 
tion of  how  sugar  is  made  from  various  trees  in  America,  by  P.  Kahn, 
Swedish  Academy  Transactions,  v.,  13. 


78  The  Ohio  River 

and  numberless  others  which  I  have  mentioned  elsewhere  in  a 
description  of  North  American  medicines.  Because  of  our 
short  stay  and  the  lateness  of  the  season,  we  saw  so  few  other 
plants  that  it  is  not  worth  while  enumerating  them.  We  found 
only  a  few  familiar  autumn  plants  in  bloom;  spring  and  summer 
would  certainly  yield  in  the  mountains  and  swamps  of  this 
western  region  a  rich  har^^est,  not  only  of  rare  but  of  yet  un- 
known plants.  Among  others  these  forests  would  yield  many 
new  examples  of  the  fungus  family,  many  unusually  large 
specimens  of  which  are  found  here  and  there.  I  saw  a  white 
Lycoperdon  that  weighed  two-and-a-quarter  pounds  and  was  a 
foot  and  eight  inches  in  diameter.  Varieties  of  Bolotis  para- 
siticis,  etc.,  as  unusual  and  almost  as  large  also  occur. 

Fruit  is  still  a  rarity,  here  as  well  as  everywhere  in  the 
mountains.  Near  the  fort  [Pitt]  was  an  orchard,  planted  by 
the  English  garrison,  but  since  neglected,  and  this  is  the  only 
one  for  perhaps  a  hundred  miles  around.  Here  were  several 
varieties  of  the  most  delicious  pears  and  apples.  The  common 
reproach  that  America  cannot  produce  such  good  fruit  as  Europe 
can  certainly  not  be  applied  to  this  region.  In  the  forest  are 
many  wild  bees,  and  on  warm  still  evenings  one  may  plainly 
perceive  the  pleasant  odor  of  honey,  which  hunters  are  in  the 
habit  of  gathering.  The  farm  products  are  Indian  corn,  wheat, 
spelt,  oats,  buckwheat  and  beets.  Because  of  the  small  number 
of  the  inhabitants,  the  value  of  the  products  is  not  large  and  the 
return  from  the  land  not  considerable.  Mr.  Ormsby,  our  host, 
owns  a  piece  of  land,  many  miles  long,  on  the  Monongahela, 
which  is  occupied  only  by  eighteen  idle  families  who  should  pay 
a  third  of  the  harvest  as  rent.  They  do  not  trouble  themselves 
about  producing  more  than  they  need  themselves,  and  are  quite 
indifferent  whether  the  owner  bids  them  go  or  sta}^,  and  as  at 
present  they  have  no  competitors  to  fear,  their  returns  are 
very  meagre. 

The  surrounding  wooded  hills  are  inhabited  by  bears,  wolves, 
lynxes,  wildcats,  sometimes  a  puma  (FelisconcolorL.),  raccoons, 
opossums  and  deer.  Elk  are  not  so  plentiful  as  formerl}'; 
and  buffalo  are  also  being  driven  away  and  in  any  case 
prefer  the  lower  country.     Deer  are  already  diminishing  in  the 


One  of  the  Vanguard  of  the  Pioneers       79 

neighborhood ;  but  it  is  not  yet  uncommon  for  a  man  to  see  ten  or 
twelve  in  a  day.  Since  there  are  no  restrictions  on  hunting,  their 
number  will  soon  be  still  more  decreased.  The  number  of  gray 
and  black  squirrels  to  be  seen  was  almost  incredible.  They 
were  migrating  and  moved  in  troops  from  this  region  to  the 
coast.  Scarcity  of  nuts  and  acorns  was  said  to  be  the  cause  of 
this  migration,  which  proved  a  latal  one  to  many  thousands  of 
these  animals,  for  everywhere  they  were  hot  in  great  numbers. 
In  Wheeling  alone  two  young  fellows  are  said  to  have  killed  219 
of  the  little  creatures  within  three  days.  At  our  inn  we  had  at 
every  meal  squirrels,  roasted,  stewed  and  in  pies.  Men  proph- 
esied from  their  migration  a  hard  winter,  which  really  followed. 
Beaver  are  met  here  and  there,  also  otter,  mink  and  ground- 
hogs; I  could  not  decide  whether  by  this  last-named  animal 
is  meant  here  in  the  mountains  what  elsewhere  in  America  is 
called  the  ground-hog  (Arctomys  monax  Schreb.),  or  more 
probably  a  badger-like  animal.  I  mention  this  that  others  on 
future  occasions  may  correct  the  common  confusion  of  names 
in  America,  for  the  Arctomys  monax  itself  is  sometimes  called 
the  ground-hog  in  America,  sometimes  woodchuck,  and  again 
the  name  ground-hog,  according  to  Kalm,  is  given  to  a  badger- 
like animal.  ^  No  one  has  taken  an  interest  either  in  catching 
or  in  finding  out  about  the  smaller  animals  of  the  mouse  family, 
several  of  which  are  said  to  be  in  the  woods. 

>  Kalm's  Reisen,  ii.,  p.  333. 


Chapter  V 
The  **  Monongahela  Country  "  and  its  Metropolis 

THE  first  Europeans  who  looked  with  eager  eyes 
upon  the  junction  of  the  Allegheny  and 
Monongahela  rivers  were  impressed  instantly 
with  the  beauty  of  the  scene  and  the  com- 
manding nature  of  "the  Point"  between  the  rivers. 
Celoron,  in  1749,  affirmed  that  this  was  the  fairest 
spot  along  La  Belle  Riviere,  and  in  1753  Washing- 
ton, as  we  have  seen,  noted  the  strategic  nature  of 
the  future  site  of  Fort  Duquesne  and  Pittsburg. 

What  these  two  early  representatives  of  two 
civilizations  thought  of  this  spot,  such  it  has  ever 
been,  beautiful  and  strategic.  Even  under  its  ever- 
lasting pall  of  smoke  "  the  Point"  of  Pittsburg  presents 
often  an  inspiring  picture  from  the  surrounding 
heights.  At  night,  when  the  winds  are  driving  the 
smoke  away,  the  great  city  lies  in  the  moonlight  like 
a  mighty  battleship  at  anchor;  two  tides  rush  silently 
together  at  the  tip  of  the  dark,  sharp  prow;  high  up  on 
lofty  buildings  twinkle  the  lights  on  "the  bridge,"  and 
far  up  in  the  blue  dome  on  the  summit  of  the  hill 
glimmer  the  lights  at  the  head  of  the  mast;  over  it  all, 
now  and  again,   the  fire-flames  from  Braddock  and 

Homestead  flash  out  as  though  the  fire  boxes  imder 

80 


Pittsburg  and  the  Monongahela  Country     8i 

a  thousand  boilers  had  been  swiftly  opened  or  a  hun- 
dred broadsides  had  been  suddenly  unmasked. 

Nowhere  are  the  sights  and  sounds  of  the  olden 
days  more  obscured  by  the  whirl  of  modern  life  than 
here  at  the  technical  and  legal  head  of  the  Ohio  River ; 
the  roar  of  the  great  wheels  of  business  would  drown  the 
past — the  curling  smoke  of  a  thousand  furnaces  would 
blind  every  eye.  And  yet  here  at  the  great  centre  of 
what  in  the  old  day  was  known  throughout  the  nation 
as  the  "Monongahela  country"  there  are  monuments 
which  neither  time  nor  change  can  efface ;  and  the  most 
wonderful  of  these  is  this  proud  city  itself;  what  it  is 
and  what  it  is  to  be  are  suggestive  of  all  that  has  been 
done  here.  It  is  a  great  and  growing  business  centre; 
it  has  always  been  that,  though  with  the  changing 
years  there  have  been  interesting  changes  in  the  forms 
of  business  transacted  here.  As  both  Washington  and 
General  Grant  said,  it  is  a  strategic  military  centre,  and 
it  is  a  strategic  commercial  centre;  it  has  been  these 
for  a  century  and  a  half  for  reasons  that  are  as  un- 
chaneing:  as  the  hills.  Few  cities  have  retained  the 
same  relative  importance  to  the  country  of  which 
they  are  the  metropolis  through  six  generations  as  has 
Pittsburg  since  its  earliest  conception  one  hundred  and 
fifty  years  ago.  In  all  the  panoramic,  shifting  scenes 
of  the  great  drama  that  has  been  playing  in  the  Monon- 
gahela country,  the  capital  city  has  more  than  held 
its  own;  turn  the  pages  of  its  unique  history  as 
rapidly  as  you  please  and  you  cannot  fail  to  receive 
two  distinct  impressions:  the  growth  of  Pittsburg  has 
been  a  healthy,  natural  growth — the  secret  of  its  success 
lies  in  its  strategic  position  and  the  nature  of  the 
"  Monongahela    country"    about   it;     and,    secondly, 


82  The  Ohio  River 

Pittsburg  is  pre-eminently  a  typical  American  city. 
The  mountains  and  rivers  made  "the  Point"  the  site 
for  a  great  city;  socially  and  politically  Pittsburg's 
equal  inheritance  from  Pennsylvania  and  New  York 
on  the  north,  and  Virginia  and  Maryland  on  the 
south,  her  close  commercial  connection  with  New 
York  and  Philadelphia  on  the  east  and  Kentucky  on 
the  west,  her  close  connection  by  the  Ohio  River  with 
the  South  and  its  markets  and  all  the  commercial 
impetus  that  this  once  implied,  her  inheritance  of 
strong  religious  principle  through  the  Scotch-Irish 
who  so  largely  peopled  the  Monongahela  country, 
and  her  equal  strain  of  German  blood  from  the  Penn- 
sylvania Dutch  frontier,  and  Yankee  blood  flowing 
through  her  to  the  Connecticut,  New  Jersey,  and 
Massachusetts  colonies  in  Ohio,  have  tended  to  make 
Pittsburg  a  cosmopolitan  American  city  par  excellence. 
The  first  business  conducted  here  at  the  head  of  the 
Ohio  was  the  international  land- jobbing  office  where 
France,  angry  dog-in-the-manger,  sat  down  and 
thumbed  her  nose  at  the  English  across  the  mountains. 
One  may  well  wonder  if,  after  all,  the  French  did  not 
bluster  a  little  here  on  the  Ohio  in  order  to  turn  the 
English  from  the  more  strategic  points,  Niagara  and 
Frontenac.  The  snake-like,  curling  line  of  French 
forts  stretched  from  Quebec  to  Fort  Duquesne;  here 
was  the  rattle  at  the  end  of  the  tail,  and  it  sounded 
with  sufficient  menace  to  draw  three  expeditions  from 
the  seaboard  across  the  mountains;  the  rattle  lured 
the  English  to  the  Ohio  to  kill  Frenchmen  when  they 
should  have  gone  northward  to  stop  the  source  of 
supply  and  communication.  The  task  was  not  com- 
pleted until  the  daring  Wolfe  scaled  the  heights  of 


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Vv 


Pittsburg  and  the  Monongahela  Country     83 

Quebec  and  cut  off  the  serpent's  head — ^leaving  the 
body  and  tail  to  squirm. 

When  at  last  New  France  was  only  a  memor}^  in 
the  West,  land-jobbers  from  Pennsylvania  and  Vir- 
ginia set  up  headquarters  in  Pittsburg  (or  Fort  Pitt  as 
Colonel  Bouquet's  new  fortress  near  the  site  of  the 
demolished  Fort  Duquesne  was  well  named)  and  the 
old  game  on  a  smaller  scale  was  again  being  played  at 
the  old  stand.  And  there  was  much  to  be  done- 
much  land  to  sell  and  many  to  buy.  We  have  spoken 
of  the  thin  line  of  pioneers  which  had  advanced  to  the 
mountainous  nest-head  of  rivers  in  the  Alleghenies; 
Draper's  Meadows  was  not  by  any  means  the  only 
cleared  spot  beyond  that  mountainous  castle  wall  at 
the  time  of  Braddock's  defeat.  All  along  the  mountain 
line,  at  every  gap  where  the  buffalo  or  deer  or  Indian 
had  found  an  opening,  the  vanguard  of  the  pioneers 
was  slowly  advancing,  with  incredible  suffering,  to  the 
head-waters  of  the  Ohio.  The  three  most  notable 
entrance  points  were  the  two  already  mentioned,  the 
New  River  route  which  the  Drapers  and  Ingles  knew 
so  well,  the  Monongahela  route  followed  by  Washington's 
and  Braddock's  armies,  and  finally  the  route  far  to  the 
south  through  Cumberland  Gap. 

Of  all  these,  that  which  led  from  the  Susquehanna 
and  Potomac  to  Pittsburg  and  the  "Monongahela 
country"  was  the  most  important;  the  largest  early 
population  in  the  Ohio  Basin  was  on  the  Monongahela 
River  and  its  tributaries,  the  Great  and  Little  Youghi- 
ogheny,  the  Cheat  River  and  Tygart's  Valley  Creek, 
and  extending  down  the  Virginia  side  of  the  Ohio  from 
Pittsburg  to  Wheeling  Creek.  The  bold  Christopher 
Gist  made  the  first  genuine  settlement  hereabouts,  on 


84  The  Ohio  River 

what  is  now  Mount  Braddock,  and  soon  all  about  his 
clearing  bright  axes  were  ringing  a  truer  tune  than  ever 
the  muzzle  of  muskets  could  sing — the  song  of  home- 
builders  in  an  old,  new  land  sung  by  a  home-loving 
people.  Yet  the  aftermath  of  the  French  War — 
Pontiac's  Rebellion  of  1763 — proved  terribly  fatal  to 
these  fast  appearing  clearings  in  the  glades  and  forests. 
The  Delawares  and  Shawanese,  strongly  allied  to  the 
French,  took  Pontiac's  bloody  belt  with  wild  delight 
and  sought  with  utmost  relish  to  carry  out  their  coup 
of  the  great  Indian's  campaign,  the  capture  of  Fort  Pitt. 
Besieging  the  little  fortress  they  spread  destruction 
far  and  wide  in  the  Monongahela  country;  every  new 
clearing  enraged  them,  and  where  they  could  not  secure 
the  white  trespassers  on  the  Indian  land  themselves 
they  applied  the  torch  to  cabins  which  had  cost  many 
days'  hard  labor  and  to  crops  planted  and  cultivated  in 
the  weakening  sweat  of  fear. 

The  small  population  of  Pittsburg,  which,  in  1763, 
perhaps  numbered  three  hundred  souls,  flocked  to 
little  Fort  Pitt  about  which  the  village  was  planted ;  as 
many  more  from  the  country  hastened  thither;  the 
remaining  population  in  the  countryside  "forted"  in 
the  blockhouses  which,  like  the  Jewish  Cities  of  Refuge, 
they  built  at  convenient  points.  But  Fort 'Pitt,  like 
Fort  Detroit,  held  fast,  and  Pontiac's  hope  faded  and 
his  warriors  fell  back  to  their  towns  on  the  Muskingum ; 
thither  Colonel  Bouquet  marched  in  1764,  and  extorted 
a  humiliating  treaty. 

Now,  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  the  clearings  in  the 
Monongahela  country  were  quickly  reoccupied;  the 
main  settlements  were  at  "Redstone  Old  Fort" 
(Brownsville),    and    Turkeyfoot    (Confluence),    Penn- 


Pittsburg  and  the  Monongahela  Country    85 

sylvania;  houses  had  been  raised  at  Somerset;  Alex- 
ander McKee  made  an  improvement  at  the  mouth  of 
Chartier's  Creek,  opposite  Logstown;  other  families 
had  settled  on  the  Ohio  above  Two-Mile  Creek;  the 
Ormsbys  and  Thompsons  had  joined  Frazier  at  the 
mouth  of  Turtle  Creek  on  the  Monongahela  and 
Braddock's  Field,  and  William  Christy  had  made  an 
improvement  on  fatal  Grant's  Hill  "within  two  miles 
of  Fort  Pitt  east"  for  the  "benefit  of  travellers." 
In  1765  the  town  of  Pittsburg  was  laid  out.  By  this 
time  all  the  land  on  both  sides  of  Braddock's  Road 
for  some  distance  back  had  been  taken  up;  Maryland 
pioneers  soon  settled  on  the  Youghiogheny  and  Monon- 
gahela rivers,  and  many  Scotch-Irish  from  Bedford 
and  York  counties  settled  between  the  Monongahela 
and  Ohio  rivers,  in  what  is  now  Washington  County, 
Pennsylvania. 

The  rapidity  of  the  movement  of  population  and 
the  proportions  it  assumed  amazed  those  in  control. 
Though  the  land  had  been  conquered  from  the  French, 
yet  the  Indians  had  given  the  English  no  rights  to 
lands  beyond  the  mountains ;  thus,  at  least,  the  Indians 
interpreted  the  treaty  of  Lancaster.  In  accordance 
with  this  claim  the  King  of  England  issued  a  proc- 
lamation October  7,  1763,  prohibiting  the  colonists 
from  settling  beyond  the  head- waters  of  the  Atlantic 
Ocean  streams.  The  proclamation  is  not  more  re- 
markable for  its  selfishness  than  for  its  stupidity;  as 
well  might  the  King  of  England  have  issued  a  mandate 
ordering  the  laurel  buds  not  to  burst  in  the  Alleghenies 
in  the  spring  of  1 764  as  to  so  misjudge  the  genius  of  the 
American  people  as  to  attempt  to  prohibit  their 
expansion  simply  to  secure  the  good- will  of  the  Indians 


86  The  Ohio  River 

and  their  heavy  rolls  of  peltry.  It  is  interesting  to 
note  the  opinion  of  such  a  thoughtful  and  knowing 
man  as  Washington,   who  wrote  William  Crawford: 

I  can  never  look  upon  that  proclamation  in  any  other  Hght 
(but  I  say  this  between  ourselves)  than  as  a  temporary  ex- 
pedient to  quiet  the  minds  of  the  Indians.  It  must  fall,  of 
course,  in  a  few  years,  especially  when  those  Indians  consent 
to  our  occupying  the  lands. 

And  Crawford  proceeded  now  (in  1767)  to  survey  some 
of  the  best  lands  in  the  Monongahela  country*  for 
Washington  in  direct  defiance  of  the  proclamation! 

Yet  the  proclamation  played  its  part  in  disturbing 
the  minds  of  the  swarming  pioneers;  coming  thither 
with  a  small  pittance  of  money,  they  feared  to  buy 
lest  the  Crown  should  carry  out  its  implied  threat  and 
dispossess  them.  Another  cause  of  unrest  was  the 
fact  that  the  line  between  Virginia  and  Pennsylvania 
(Mason  and  Dixon's  Line)  had  not  been  completed 
through  the  Monongahela  country,  and  both  States 
claimed  even  the  site  of  Pittsburg.  The  Virginia 
pioneers  feared  to  pay  Pennsylvania  officials  for  land 
lest  it  be  found  to  lie  in  Virginia,  and  vice  versa. 
Another  cause  of  disquiet  was  the  numerous  grants 
made  or  claimed  to  have  been  made  by  the  English 
Crown  or  its  legal  representatives  (the  commander  of 
Fort  Pitt,  for  instance)  in  this  region,  all  of  which 
were  more  or  less  at  variance  with  the  spirit  of  the 
proclamation  of  1763;  the  soldiers  and  officers  of  the 
French  War  campaigns  had  their  claims;  the  heirs, 
assigns,  or  members  of  the  Ohio  Company  had  their 

»  At  Great  Meadows,  and  on  Washington's  Run  and  Chartier's  Creek. 
See  A.  B.  Hulbert,  Washington  and  the  West,  lo,  28-9,  52-3  seq. 


Remains  of  Old  Milk-House  on  Washington's  Plantation  on  the 

Youghiogheny  River. 


/>; 


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"■■'&, 


Pittsburg  and  the  Monongahela  Country     ^7 

claims;  there  were  also  the  Neale  and  Company's  grant, 
the  Walpole  Grant,  and  private  grants  (real  or  promised) 
that  had  been  made  to  prime  favorites  like  Colonel 
George  Croghan,  who  lived  at  his  country-seat  four 
miles  up  the  Allegheny  River  from  Pittsburg,  And, 
contrary  to  what  may  be  naturally  supposed,  the 
Indian  raids  into  the  Monongahela  country,  which 
wrought  such  desolation,  did  not  cease  simply  because 
the  country  was  becoming  well  settled.  It  can  almost 
be  said  that  they  increased;  the  Indians  had  now 
learned  the  use  of  many  of  the  white  men's  implements, 
and  it  was  from  the  populated  districts  that  the  horses, 
for  instance,  were  to  be  obtained,  as  well  as  much  else 
that  the  savage  had  learned  to  like;  here,  too,  the 
crops  were  most  luxuriant.  Thus  it  was  that  on  the 
Monongahela  country  the  fury  of  scores  of  murderous 
raids  was  spent,  and  when  at  last  they  ceased  there 
they  were  directed  to  the  Ohio  River  to  intercept  the 
products  of  the  Monongahela  country  en  route  to  the 
'stations"  and  settlements  of  Kentucky  and  Ohio. 

This  unstable  and  restless  condition  of  society 
had  its  effect  on  the  minds  and  hearts  of  men;  after 
a  few  false  titles  to  property  had  been  bought,  bringing 
the  purchaser,  eventually,  ruin  and  disgrace,  men 
began  to  be  very  wary  of  the  host  of  land-jobbers  which 
besieged  most  pioneers.  The  result  was  that  many 
who  had  settled  in  this  region  became  disgusted  with 
the  horde  of  land  sharpers  which  infested  such  points 
as  Brownsville  (Redstone  Old  Fort)  and  Pittsburg, 
and  resolved  to  go  farther  west  to  newer  lands  down 
the  Ohio.  This,  and  other  causes,  resulted  in  one  of 
the  curious  phases  of  American  frontier  life — the 
constant  removal  of  pioneer  families  from  place  to 


88  The  Ohio  River 

place.  It  was  not,  as  has  been  affirmed  on  thousands 
of  pages,  altogether  a  love  of  the  wilderness  and  its 
solitude  that  drove  these  men  from  place  to  place,  but 
rather  a  desire  to  escape  the  early  social  conditions 
which  existed  in  the  earlier  frontier  communities, 
filled  with  criminals  and  outlaws  from  the  older 
settlements  east  of  the  mountains.  To  tell  the  truth, 
there  is  no  describing  the  actual  conditions  that  ex- 
isted, for  instance,  at  the  infant  settlement  of  Pittsburg 
in  these  rough  years  when  the  upper  waters  of  the 
Ohio  were  receiving  their  first  population.  There  was 
little  law  and  less  order;  and  a  quiet  German  pioneer 
with  a  family,  for  instance,  would  have  gotten  clear 
of  such  a  place,  and  its  surroundings  of  drunkenness 
and  revelling,  with  all  the  despatch  in  his  power. 

Pilgrim  is  not  by  any  means  too  saintly  a  word  to 
be  apphed  to  the  genuine  pioneer;  he  might  be  uncouth 
in  dress  and  manners,  untidy  in  the  extreme  as  to 
appearance,  ignorant  of  letters  and  innocent  of  all  that 
is  represented  by  our  word  culture;  yet  at  his  average 
he  was  a  brave  and  a  generous  man  who  labored  for 
and  loved  his  hearthstone  and  fought  with  fury  for 
the  wife  and  children  who  gathered  at  nightfall  around 
its  ruddy  light.  But  the  very  blessings  such  men 
brought  into  the  wilderness  of  the  upper  Ohio  in  the 
last  three  decades  of  the  eighteenth  century  were 
enjoyed  by  thousands  of  adventurers  of  every  grade 
from  the  cutthroat  knave  to  the  polished  land-shark; 
these  made  many  of  the  pioneer  settlements  veritable 
hells,  threatening  the  reputation  and  happiness  of  all 
who  came  within  their  reach.  It  is  in  point  to  recall 
that  Mary  Harris,  the  white  woman  captive  among 
the  Delawares  (from  whom  White  Woman's  River  in 


Pittsburg  and  the  Monongahela  Country     89 

eastern  Ohio  is  named),  preferred  the  wigwam  to  the 
frontier  cabin  since  she  "did  not  see  how  white  men 
could  be  so  wicked  as  some  were  on  the  frontier ' ' ; 
and  also  to  remember  that  an  ex-commander  at  Fort 
Pitt  wrote  to  his  successor  congratulating  him  on 
"being  able  to  control  the  beasts  of  the  garrison  and 
the  devils  of  the  town. ' '  And  so,  while  describing 
the  making  of  the  important  settlement  at  the  head 
of  the  Ohio,  it  is  proper  to  hint  at  the  conditions  which 
really  existed  and  which  tended  to  hasten  the  flow  of 
pioneers  onward  toward  the  Black  Forest  through 
which  the  Ohio  River  flowed. 

The  Ohio  River,  it  is  to  be  observed,  runs  almost 
straight  north  from  Pittsburg  for  some  twenty-five 
miles,  turning  into  its  general  southwesterly  direction 
near  the  mouth  of  Beaver  River;  this  fact  explains 
the  early  importance  of  what  we  call  the  Panhandle 
of  West  Virginia,  as  well  as  the  early  rise  and  impor- 
tance of  Wheeling  and  Grave  Creek.  Washington 
and  Beaver  counties,  Pennsylvania,  and  what  is  now 
Ohio  County,  West  Virginia,  composed  the  frontier 
of  the  Monongahela  country.  As  the  savages  came 
rushing  from  the  Muskingum  and  Scioto  upon  Pittsburg, 
they  would  cross  the  Ohio  near  Wheeling  and  take  the 
short  cut  through  Washington  County  to  the  Ohio 
at  Pittsburg.  Again,  the  pioneers  reaching  Browns- 
ville on  the  Monongahela  found  that  by  a  short  and 
easy  land  march  of  less  than  fifty  miles,  across  this 
frontier,  Wheeling  could  be  reached,  and  a  long, 
dangerous  river  journey  of  three  or  four  times  that 
distance  could  be  saved;  and  the  Ohio  was  always 
navigable  below  Wheeling  whether  it  was  above  that 
point  or  not. 


90  The  Ohio  River 

Thus  pioneers  swarming  across  the  Alleghenies  on 
Braddock's  Road  to  the  Ohio  naturally  chose  the 
short  cut  and  reached  the  Ohio  below  Pittsburg. 
There  was  little  or  no  reason  for  their  going  to 
that  town,  until  late  in  the  centtiry;  in  1770,  Wash- 
ington, who  was  in  the  West  to  visit  his  lands, 
affirms  that  the  number  of  houses  at  Pittsburg 
was  twenty,  making  a  population  of  perhaps  one 
hundred  persons.  Two  years  before  this,  1768,  when 
an  effort  was  being  made  to  pacify  the  Indians  by 
summoning  the  inhabitants  of  the  region  to  withdraw 
it  is  recorded  that  there  were  "eight  or  ten  families" 
at  Turkey  Foot  (Confluence),  and  a  "few  families" 
at  Little  Crossings;  the  messengers  bearing  the  sum- 
mons were  confronted  at  Gist's  plantation  on  Mount 
Braddock  by  "about  thirty  or  forty  men"  from 
Cheat  River  and  Stewart's  Crossing  (New  Haven,  Pa., 
opposite  Connellsville),.  and  thirty- two  men  collected 
to  hear  the  summons  at  "Red  Stone"  (Brownsville). 
From  this  meagre  data  it  is  possible  to  estimate  the 
population  of  the  Monongahela  country  in  1770 
(allowing  for  accessions  and  including  Pittsburg) 
at  fifteen  hundred  souls ;  this  is  probably  quite  liberal. 
When  Dunmcre's  War  broke  out  in  1774  "more  than 
one  thousand  people"  crossed  the  Monongahela  River 
at  Brownsville  in  one  day  hurrying  eastward;  but 
the  country  had  filled  fast  between  1770  and  1774. 
The  aforesaid  summons  was  made  in  accordance  with 
an  "Act  to  remove  the  persons  now  settled,  and  to 
prevent  others  from  settling  on  any  lands  in  this 
province  not  purchased  of  the  Indians"  which  was 
passed  by  the  Pennsylvania  Assembly  February  3, 
1768.     It  was  sent  in  the  hands  of  the  hero-preacher 


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Pittsburg  and  the  Monongahela  Country     91 

Reverend  John  Steele  of  Carlisle,  Pennsylvania.  Cer- 
tain Indians  of  the  Six  Nations  from  Mingo  Bottoms, 
by  name  Captain  Haven,  Captain  Hornet,  Captain 
Mygog-Wigo,  Captain  Strike-belt,  Captain  Pouch, 
Captain  Gilly,  and  Captain  Slewballs,  came  to  meet 
Steele;  they  said,  referring  to  a  coming  treaty: 
When  George  Croghan  and  our  great 
men  will  talk  together,  we  will  tell  what  to  do." 
Yet  the  Indians  also  expressed  regret  that  the  whites 
were  to  be  forcibly  driven  away  and  thus  hurt  Mr. 
Steele's  influence. 

But  this  question  of  Indian  ownership  was  soon 
put  to  an  end,  as  far  as  the  Monongahela  country 
was  concerned,  by  the  treaty  of  Fort  Stanwix  (Rome, 
New    York),  where    the    Virginians,    under    Thomas 
Walker,  "purchased"  from  the  Six  Nations  all  the  land 
lying  southwest  of  the  Ohio  River  as  far  down  as  the 
mouth  of  the  Tennessee  River.     The  Delawares  and 
Shawanese  on  the  Scioto  and  Muskingum  and  who 
hunted  continually  on  the  south  side  of  the  Ohio  had 
no  word  in  this  transaction,  though  they  used  bitter 
words  and  threats  when  they  heard  of  it;   and  bitter 
deeds   followed   hard  on  bitter  words.     The   Indians 
northwest  of  the  Ohio  disliked  the  Virginians  who  had 
bought   this   region   more   than   the   Pennsylvanians  ♦. 
as  a  rule  they  liked  the  traders  from  the  latter  province 
and  disliked  the  settlers  who  came  mostly  from  Vir- 
ginia   or    farther    south.     With    the    signing    of    the 
treaty  of  Fort  Stanwix  the  Virginians  came  rapidly 
to   the   Ohio  and  descended  it   "in  shoals,"   as  one 
pioneer  affirmed ;   in  a  moment,  as  it  were,  a  thousand 
clearings  in  the  Black  Forest  appeared  on  the  southern 
shore  of  the  Ohio  between  Pittsburg  and  "the  Falls" 


92  The  Ohio  River 

at  Louisville.  The  years  1770,  1771,  1772,  1773,  and 
1774  were  wonderful  years  in  the  history  of  this  Black 
Forest  to  which  the  Ohio  River  led. 

A  number  of  explorers  had  gone  down  the  valley 
where  Mary  Ingles  lived  in  this  decade  and  a  half 
since  Braddock's  defeat  from  both  the  Draper  and 
Greenbrier  settlements  on  the  New  River  and  the 
Monongahela  country.  The  most  important  of  these 
were  George  Croghan,  who  lived  on  the  Allegheny, 
Captain  Gordon,  and  George  Washington.  From  the 
records  of  these  men  we  glean  much  the  same  sombre 
picture  that  Mary  Ingles  saw — the  dark,  wet  forests 
on  either  hand,  the  great  piles  of  driftwood,  the  heavy 
timbered  hill- tops  in  the  distance.  Below  Pittsburg 
there  were  no  clearings,  though  it  was  only  a  moment 
now  before  a  vast  tide  of  emigrants  left  the  Monon- 
gahela country  for  the  "lower  country." 

Washington  has  left  the  clearest  picture  of  the  Ohio 
of  pre-Revolutionary  days,  as  the  result  of  his  trip 
down  the  river  in  1770.  Even  before  the  treaty  of 
Fort  Stanwix  was  made  this  farsigh ted  man  saw  that  the 
Ohio  Valley  was  to  become  the  home  of  a  great,  free 
people.  He  was  as  practical  as  he  was  farsighted  and 
began  then,  as  we  have  noted,  to  invest  in  western 
lands.  It  was  to  see  the  country  and  to  mark  the 
boundaries  of  the  Virginia  regiment's  bounty  lands 
that  Washington  made  the  journey.  The  river  trip 
began  at  Pittsburg,  October  17,  1770;  the  party  con- 
sisted of  nine,  including  Washington  and  his  physician, 
Dr.  James  Craik.  One  "large  canoe,"  as  Washington 
termed  it,  held  the  entire  party  and  their  "store  of 
provisions  and  necessaries. ' '  After  a  couple  of  days 
a  "barrel  of  biscuit"  was  buried  on  an  island  to  lighten 


Pittsburg  and  the  Monongahela  Country     93 

the  canoe.  The  entries  in  Washington's  Diary  relate 
mostly  to  the  nature  of  the  land  on  both  sides  of  the 
river.  Colonel  Croghan  accompanied  the  party  to 
Logstown.  From  Pittsburg  to  Logstown  the  river 
was  full  of  "ugly  rifts  and  shoals,  which  we  found 
difficult  to  pass."  The  first  night  was  spent  four 
miles  above  Logstown;  the  second,  eight  miles  above 
the  mouth  of  Yellow  Creek.  On  the  third  evening 
the  Iroquois  "Mingo  Town"  was  reached,  "a  little 
above  Cross  Creeks."  The  town  contained  twenty 
cabins  and  some  seventy  inhabitants. 

Here  a  report  reached  the  travellers  that  two 
traders  had  been  murdered  at  Grape  Vine  Town, 
thirty-eight  miles  below;  but  after  a  council  of  war 
it  was  decided  to  proceed  on  the  morrow.  Passing 
"the  Cross  Creeks"  the  mouth  of  Fishing  Creek  was 
reached  on  the  night  of  the  23d. 

On  the  24th  "Split-Island  creek"  was  passed,  the 
name  originating  among  the  Indians  because  an  island 
lay  in  the  Ohio  opposite  its  mouth.  "Six  miles  below 
this  again,"  writes  Washington,  "we  came  to  another 
creek  on  the  west  side  called  .  .  .  Wheeling; 
and  about  a  mile  lower  down  appears  to  be  another 
small  water  [stream]  coming  in  on  the  east  side,  which 
I  remark,  because  of  the  scarcity  of  them,  and  to  show 
how  badly  furnished  this  country  is  with  mill-seats." 
About  two  miles  below  this  Pipe  Creek  was  passed, 
' '  so  called  by  the  Indians  from  a  stone  which  is  found 
here,  out  of  which  they  make  pipes."  Three  miles 
onward  "  Fox-Grape- Vine "  or  Captina  Creek  was 
reached,  on  which,  eight  miles  from  its  mouth,  was 
"Grape- Vine  Town."  Messengers  were  sent  up  to 
the  town,  which   they  found   occupied   by   two  lone 


94  The  Ohio  River 

squaws,  the  other  inhabitants  being  away  on  a  hunting 
expedition.  From  them  it  was  learned  that  the 
foundation  for  the  rumor  of  murder  consisted  in  the 
accidental  drowning  of  a  trader,  which  shows  how 
false  reports  could  circulate  and  become  magnified 
in  a  wilderness  entirely  innocent  of  the  telegraph  and 
newspaper.  The  name  of  the  Indian  village  suggests 
the  vine-clad  nature  of  the  olden  forest  previously 
mentioned.  "About  five  miles  from  the  Vine  creek," 
writes  Washington,  ' '  comes  in  a  very  large  creek  to  the 
eastward,  called  by  the  Indians  Cut  creek,  from  a 
town  or  tribe  of  Indians,  which  they  say  was  cut  off 
entirely  in  a  very  bloody  battle  between  them  and  the 
Six  Nations.  This  creek  empties  just  at  the  lower 
end  of  an  island,  and  is  seventy  or  eighty  yards  wide; 
I  fancy  it  is  the  creek  commonly  called  Wheeling,  by 
the  people  of  Redstone. "  Such  is  the  slight  reference 
to  what  was  to  become  a  most  historic  point  on  the 
upper  Ohio.  Encamping  on  the  night  of  the  25  th  in 
the  middle  of  the  Long  Reach,  the  party ' '  threw  out  some 
lines,  and  found  a  catfish  of  the  size  of  our  largest 
river  catfish,  hooked  to  one  of  them  in  the  morn- 
ing, though  it  was  of  the  smallest  kind  here." 
Camp  was  pitched  next  night  about  four  miles 
above  the  mouth  of  the  Muskingum.  In  passing 
the  latter  river  next  day  Washington  estimates 
the  distance  to  the  mouth  of  the  Little  Kanawha  at 
"about  thirteen  miles";  as  the  actual  distance  by 
survey  is  twelve  and  one  half  miles  it  seems  that 
Washington's  estimate  was  a  very  clever  one.  Con- 
cerning all  these  branches  of  the  Ohio  Washington 
made  particular  inquiry  from  the  Indians  who  accom- 
panied him  in  a  separate  canoe ;   their  length  and  the 


Pittsburg  and  the  Monongahela  Country     95 

fertility  of  their  shores  were  the  points  upon  which 
information  was  desired. 

The  prospector  was  particularly  pleased  with  the 
appearance  of  the  land  lying  on  the  Virginia  side  of 
the  Ohio  between  Long  Reach  and  the  mouth  of  the 
Little  Kanawha.  Here  he  made  a  survey.  Below 
the  Little  Kanawha  little  of  note  occurs.  The  navi- 
gation of  the  river  is  only  slightly  referred  to  during 
the  entire  passage ;  above  the  mouth  of  the  Muskingum 
there  was  some  ' '  pretty  strong  water ' '  but  not  * '  strong ' ' 
enough  to  be  termed  "rifts";  here  "the  sides  of  the 
river,"  Washington  writes,  "were  a  good  deal  incom- 
moded with  old  trees,  which  impeded  our  passage  a 
little."  At  Great  Bend  Washington  found  a  rapid, 
but  below  that  "the  water  .  .  .  was  quite 
dead,  and  as  easily  passed  one  way  as  the  other. " 
On  the  27th  camp  was  made  opposite  the  mouth  of 
the  Hockhocking;  and  the  next  at  the  mouth  of  an 
imknown  creek  six  miles  below  where  the  Iroquois 
chieftain  Kiyashuta  was  encamped  with  his  hunting 
party.  On  the  evening  of  the  30th  the  exploring 
party  camped  five  miles  above  the  mouth  of  the 
Great  Kanawha. 

On  the  31st  the  canoe  was  sent  down-stream  to  the 
Great  Kanawha  while  Washington  and  party  made 
the  journey  by  land,  taking  in  a  wide  sweep  of 
countr>\  Five  days  were  spent  in  this  region  ex- 
ploring and  hunting.  On  November  3d,  "at  the 
beginning  of  the  bottom,  above  the  junction  of  the 
rivers,"  Washington  "marked  two  maples,  an  elm  and 
a  hoop-wood  tree,  as  a  comer  of  the  [Virginia]  soldiers' 
[bount}^]  lands,  if  we  can  get  it,  intending  to  take  all 
the   bottom  from  hence  to  the  rapids  in  the  Great 


96  The  Ohio  River 

Bend,  in  one  survey. "  Early  prospectors  judged  land 
largely  by  the  size  and  nature  of  the  timber  growing 
thereon;  on  the  Kanawha  Washington  described  a 
giant  sycamore  which,  being  measured  three  feet  from 
the  ground,  was  found  to  have  a  circumference  of 
forty-four  feet  and  ten  inches.  In  summing  up  his 
trip  Washington  probably  gives  the  clearest  general 
description  of  the  Ohio  of  early  times  that  we  have. 
He  says: 

There  is  very  little  difference  in  the  general  width  of  the 
river  from  Fort  Pitt  to  the  Kenhawa ;  but  in  the  depth  I  believe 
the  odds  are  considerably  in  favor  of  the  lower  parts,  as  we 
found  no  shallows  below  the  Mingo  Town,  except  in  one  or  two 
places  where  the  river  was  broad,  and  there,  I  do  not  know  but 
there  might  have  been  a  deep  channel  in  some  parts  of  it.      Every 
here  and  there  are  islands,  some  larger  and  some  smaller,  which, 
operating  in  the  nature  of  locks,  or  steps,  occasion  pretty  still 
water  above,  but  for  the  most  part  strong   and  rapid  water 
alongside  of  them.      However  none  of  these  is  so  swift  but  that 
a  vessel  may  be  rowed  or  set  up  with  poles.      When  the  river 
is  in  its  natural  state,  large  canoes,  that  will  carry  five   or  six 
thousand  weight  or  more,  may  be  worked  against  the  stream 
by  four  hands,  twenty  or  twenty-five  miles  a  day;   and  down  a 
good  deal  more.     The  Indians,  who  are  very  dexterous  (even 
their  women)  in  the  management  of  canoes,  have  their  hunting- 
camps  and  cabins  all  along  the  river,  for  the  convenience  of 
transporting  their  skins  by  water  to  market.     In  the  fall,  so 
LOon  as  the  hunting-season  comes  on,  they  set  out  with  their 
families  for  this  purpose ;  and  in  hunting  will  move  their  camps 
from  place  to  place,  till  by  the  spring  they  get  two  or   three 
hundred  or  more  miles  from  their  towns ;  then  catch  beaver  in 
their  way  up,  which  frequently  brings  them  into  the  month  of 
May,  when  the  women  are  employed   in   planting.     The   men 
are  at  market,  and  in  idleness,  till  the  autumn  again,  when  they 
pursue  the  same  course.     During  the  summer  months  they  live 
a  poor  and  perishing  life. 


The  Mound  at  Moundsville,  West  Virginia. 


.    An  Old  Ford  on  the  Upper  Youghiogheny. 


Pittsburg  and  the  Monongahela  Country      97 

The  Indians  who  reside  upon  the  Ohio,  the  upper  parts  of 
it  at  least,  are  composed  of  Shawanees,  Delawares,  and  some  of 
the  Mingoes,  who,  getting  but  little  part  of  the  consideration 
that  was  given  for  the  lands  eastward  of  the    Ohio,  view   the 
settlements  of  the  people  upon  this  river  with  an  uneasy  and 
jealous  eye,  and  do  not  scruple  to  say  that  they  must  be  com- 
pensated for  their  right  if  the  people  settle  thereon,  notwith- 
standing the  cession  of  the  Six  Nations.     On  the  other  hand, 
the  people  of  Virginia  and  elsewhere  are  exploring  and  marking 
all  the  lands  that  are  valuable,  not  only  on  the  Redstone  and 
other  waters  of  the  Monongahela,  but  along  the  Ohio  as  low  as 
the  Little  Kanawha;   and  by  next  summer  I  suppose   they  will 
get  to  the  Great  Kanawha  at  least.     How  difficult  it  may  be 
to  contend  with  these  people  afterwards  it  is  easy  to  be  judged, 
from  every  day's  experience  of  lands  actually  settled,  suppos- 
ing these  settlements  to  be  made ;  than  which  nothing  is   more 
probable,  if  the  Indians  permit  them,  from  the  disposition  of 
the  people  at  present.     A  few  settlements  in  the  midst  of  some 
of  the  large  bottoms  would  render  it  impracticable  to  get  any 
large  quantity  of  land  together;   as  the  hills  all  the  way  down 
the  river,  as  low  as  I  went,  come  pretty  close,  are  steep   and 
broken,  and  incapable  of  settlements  (though  some  of  them  are 
rich),  and  only  fit  to  support  the  bottoms  with  timber  and  wood. 
The  land  back  of  the  bottoms,  as  far  as  I  have  been  able  to 
judge,  either  from  my  own  observations  or  from  my  own  infor- 
mation, is  nearly  the  same,  that  is,  exceedmgly  uneven  and  hilly; 
and  I  presume  there  are  no  bodies  of  fiat,  rich  land  to  be  found, 
till  one  gets  far  enough  from  the  river  to  head  the  little  runs 
and  drains,  that  come  through  the  hills,  and  to  the  sources  of 
the  creeks  and  their  branches.     This,  it  seems,  is  the  case  with 
the  lands  upon  the  Monongahela    and  Youghioghany,  and  I 
fancy  holds  good  upon  this  river,  till  you  get  into  the  flat  lands 
below  the  falls.     The  bottom  land  differs  a  good  deal  in  quality. 
That  highest  up  the  river  in  general  is  richest;    though  the 
bottoms  are  neither  so  wide  nor  so  long,  as  those  below.      Walnut, 
cherry,  and  some  other  kinds  of  wood  neither  tall  nor  large, 
but  covered  with  grape  vines,  with  the  fruit  of  which  this  coun- 
try at  this  instant  abounds,  are  the  growth  of  the  richest  bottoms ; 
but  on  the  other  hand,  these  bottoms  appear  to  me  to  be  the 


98  The  Ohio  River 

lowest  and  most  subject  to  floods.  The  sugar-tree  and  ash 
mixed  with  walnut,  compose  the  growth  of  the  next  richest 
low  grounds;  beech,  poplar,  and  oaks  the  last.  The  soil  of  this 
is  also  good,  but  inferior  to  either  of  the  other  kinds;  and  beech 
bottoms  are  objectionable  on  account  of  the  difficulty  of  clearing 
them,  as  their  roots  spread  over  a  large  surface  of  ground  and 
are  hard  to  kill,^ 

As  Washington  forecast,  the  Ohio  Valley  soon  saw 
the  pioneers  in  almost  every  vale;  the  years  1 771-1774 
witnessed  a  great  change  and  on  all  the  Allegheny 
trails  were  parties  hurrying  westward  to  "stake"  a 
claim,  purposing  to  go  back  and  bring  their  families 
later.  The  bold  frontiersman  Ebenezer  Zane  with 
his  brothers  Jonathan  and  Silas— "  typical,  old-fash- 
ioned names  these,"  writes  Dr.  Thwaites,  "bespeaking 
the  God-fearing,  Bible-loving,  Scotch  Presbyterian 
stock  from  which  sprang  so  large  a  proportion  of 
trans- Allegheny  pioneers  " — made  the  first  clearing  at 
the  mouth  of  Wheeling  Creek  and  laid  the  beginnings 
of  the  important  city  of  Wheeling  in  1769,  though 
Washington  does  not  mention  it;  here  in  a  few  years 
Fort  Fincastle  was  erected  for  the  protection  of  the 
frontier  of  the  Monongahela  country.  An  important 
settlement  was  also  made  at  the  mouth  of  Grave 
Creek  on  the  present  site  of  Moundsville,  West  Vir- 
ginia. Here  the  youthful  George  Rogers  Clark,  who. 
as  we  shall  see,  was  to  be  the  conqueror  of  Illinois, 
made  himself  a  tomahawk  claim  and  spent  the  winter 

of  1773. 

From  this  point  downward  there  were  no  settlements 
of  importance  until  the  Ohio  emerged  from  the  Black 
Forest;   here  to  the  southward  lay  the  beautiful  Blue 

>  Sparks,  Writings  of  Washington,  ii.,  530,  531 


Pittsburg  and  the  Monongahela  Country    99 

Grass  country  of  Kcn-ta-kee — the  "meadow  land." 
Virginians  were  acquainted  with  the  blue  grass  at 
home  and  knew  that  it  meant  the  finest  pasturage 
and  rich  soil.  To  this  splendid  country  there  were 
two  doors;  the  Ohio  River  was  the  front  door  and 
Cumberland  Gap  in  the  Cumberland  Mountain  range 
was  the  back  door.  The  first  comers  to  build  a  cabin 
in  this  land  of  milk  and  honey  came  in  at  the  front 
door — the  Ohio  River — in  the  spring  of  1774;  James 
Harrod  and  forty  companions  descended  the  Ohio 
and,  landing  near  "the  Falls"  (Louisville),  passed  in- 
land to  Mercer  County  and  laid  the  beginnings  of 
what  was  afterward  Harrodsburg.  Attempts  had  been 
made  to  secure  a  foothold  at  "the  Falls,"  but  the 
danger  from  the  Indians  across  the  river  was  too 
great  and  the  interior  settlements  and  clearings  in- 
creased in  number  far  more  rapidly  than  any  along  the 
river.  The  bold  Daniel  Boone  opened  the  back  door 
to  Kentucky  in  1775,  reaching  the  site  of  his  fort, 
Boonesboro,  on  the  Kentucky  River,  the  day  after  the 
Revolutionary  War  had  been  precipitated  at  Lexington 
and  Concord. 

Pittsburg  was  at  the  threshold  of  this  "front  door" 
to  the  Ohio  Valley,  though  this  was  true  more  in  a 
military  sense  than  a  civil  one;  Fort  Duquesne  and 
then  Fort  Pitt  were  the  most  important  western 
military  posts  in  the  West  throughout  the  Old  French 
and  Revolutionary  wars;  so  far  as  the  emigration 
was  concerned,  however,  it  was  some  years  before 
Pittsburg  became  the  leading  port  of  embarkation. 

As  we  shall  see,  this  post  at  the  head  of  the  Ohio  was 
the  starting  point  and  base  of  supplies  for  many  cam- 
paigns and  expeditions,  but  for  many  years  after  the 


loo  The  Ohio  River 

town  was  laid  out  in  1765  it  was  only  a  collection  of 
huts  about  a  fort.  The  nature  of  the  place  may, 
therefore,  be  readily  imagined,  especially  from  the 
fact  that  most  commanders  who  were  attempting  to 
make  soldiers  out  of  their  men  desired  to  have  them 
at  a  distance  from  it.  It  was  a  trader's  and  sutler's 
camp.  At  the  close  of  the  Revolution  the  agent  of 
the  Penns,  Mr.  Tench  Francis,  arranged  to  lay  out  the 
Manor  of  Pittsburg,  under  the  direction  of  George 
Woods,  who  employed  Thomas  Vickroy  in  the  work- 
Arthur  Lee  wrote  as  follows  of  the  little  settle- 
ment : 

Pittsburg  is  inhabited  almost  entirely  by  Scots  and  Irish, 
who  live  in  paltry  log  houses,  and  are  as  dirty  as  in  the 
north  of  Ireland,  or  even  Scotland.  There  is  a  great  deal 
of  small  trade  carried  on;  the  goods  being  brought  at  the 
vast  expense  of  forty-five  shillings  per  cwt.  from  Philadelphia 
and  Baltimore.  They  take,  in  the  shops,  money,  wheat,  fiour  and 
skins.  There  are  in  the  town  four  attomies,  two  doctors,  and 
not  a  priest  of  any  persuasion,  nor  church,  nor  chapel.  The  rivers 
encroach  fast  on  the  town;  and  to  such  a  degree,  that,  as  a  gentle- 
man told  me,  the  Allegheny  had  within  thirty  years  of  his  mem- 
ory, carried  away  one  hundred  yards.  The  place,  I  believe, 
will  never  be  very  considerable. 

A  far  more  interesting  picture  of  early  Pittsburg 
and  its  environs  of  this  time  was  written  by  Johann 
D.  Schopf,  who  came  to  America  as  surgeon  of 
the  Anspach-Bayreuth  mercenaries  and  fought  on  the 
English  side  in  the  Revolution.  He  remained  in  the 
service  till  the  end  of  the  war  in  1783,  when  he  under- 
took a  journey  to  learn  more  of  the  condition  and 
natural  features  of  the  country  and  also  to  add  to  his 
collections  of  plants  and  animals.  This  journey  is 
described  in  his  book,  Reise  durch  einige  der  Vereinigten 


>  ■  _       "r 


Fort  Boonesborough,  Kentucky, 


93      r- 

-    ■  .'iV 

-*—  ^^  re 


v.' 


• 


Pittsburg  and  the  Monongahela  Country    loi 

Staaten.^  The  parts  describing  his  visits  to  Pittsburg 
and  vicinity  are  presented  herewith,  the  original  spell- 
ing of  place-names  being  retained : 

In  Pittsburg  we  were  directed  to  the  best  inn,  a  rickety 
little  wooden  cabin  on  the  Monongahela,  whose  exterior  was 
unpromising,  but  we  were  encouraged  by  the  sight  of  several 
well-dressed  men  and  fine-appearing  women.  They  were  not, 
however,  as  much  interested  in  us  as  in  our  conveyance,  for 
we  had  made  the  whole  journey  in  a  chaise,  which  till  now  had 
been  considered  quite  impossible.  We  had,  therefore,  not  been 
at  all  surprised  when,  as  we  passed  a  house  in  the  mountains, 
the  mother  with  shrill  cries  called  her  children  together  to  show 
them  what  they  had  never  before  seen,  a  chaise.  .  .  . 

Two  years  after  Pontiac's  Rebellion  Pittsburg  was  again 
laid  out  more  carefully  than  before  on  the  east  bank  of  the 
Monongahela,  some  300  yards  from  the  fort.  It  now  contains 
about  sixty  wooden  houses  and  cabins,  in  which  live  only  a 
little  more  than  100  families,  for  the  growth  of  the  place,  which 
had  been  rapid  at  first,  was  checked  by  the  outbreak  of  the 
last  war.  The  first  stone  house  was  built  this  summer  and  you 
will  soon  see  several  substantial  btiildings,  as  this  place  has 
strong  hopes  of  becoming  in  course  of  time  a  large  and  important 
city.  There  are  still  no  houses  of  public  worship  or  judicial 
buildings.  There  is,  however,  a  German  preacher  living  here 
who  officiates  for  all  creeds,  and  the  State  of  Pennsylvania, 
according  to  the  constitution,  sends  hither  once  or  twice  a  year 
a  judge  to  administer  justice.  The  inhabitants  are  still  poor, 
judged  by  the  conditions  prevailing  elsewhere,  and  are  also 
extremely  idle  and  lazy,  so  much  so  that  they  hesitate  when 
they  are  offered  money  to  earn,  though  they  are  most  avaricious. 
Every  one  complains  about  this,  and  we  also  found  that  every 


'  Reise  durch  einige  der  miitlern  und  sudlichen  Vereinigten  Nordameri- 
kanischen  Staaten  nach  Ost-Florida  und  den  Bahaina-inseln,  tintcrnommen 
in  den  jahren  1 783  und  1 784.  2  v.  Eriangen,  1 788.  Our  extract  is  from 
a  portion  of  this  work  translated  for,  and  published  in,  a  Bulletin  of  the 
Carnegie  Library  of  Pittsburg. 


I02  The  Ohio  River 

trifling  thing  made  here  is  considerably  dearer  even  than  in 
Philadelphia;  that  the  people  do  not  want  to  get  rich  through 
industry  and  moderate  prices,  but  by  fleecing  the  strangers  and 
travellers;  and  because  they  hate  work,  they  charge  high  prices 
when  one  disturbs  their  comfortable  inactivity. 

Their  means  of  livelihood  have  hitherto  been  limited  to 
farming  and  trade  in  skins  and  furs.  Now,  however,  as  very 
considerable  settlements  have  already  been  begun  farther  down 
the  Ohio,  which  increase  constantly  and  rapidly  because  of  the 
great  number  of  people  who  are  daily  moving  in  that  direction, 
the  inhabitants  of  Pittsburg  derive  much  profit  from  trade 
and  and  the  coming  and  going  of  travellers.  On  account  of  its 
advantageous  situation,  Pittsburg,  inconsiderable  as  the  town 
now  is,  cannot  fail  to  be  in  the  future  an  important  place  for 
inland  trade.  .  .  . 

This  place  will  not  fail  to  get  a  portion  of  the  northern 
fur  trade  (provided  the  friendship  of  the  Indians  can  be  assured) , 
though  Newyork  has  great  hopes  of  that  trade,  and  on  account 
of  the  even  more  conveniently  situated  Oneyda,  Mohawk  and 
Hudson  rivers,  must  be  able  to  attract  the  more  important 
portion.  It  is  certainly  a  long  distance  from  Pittsburg  down 
the  Ohio  and  Mississippi,  but  they  often  go  from  here  to  New 
Orleans  at  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi  in  fourteen  days.  ^ 
The  current  of  the  Ohio  is  rapid  and  carries  much  tonnage  in 
spring  and  fall;  and  this  will  be  the  most  convenient  and  the 
only  route  for  the  future  exportation  of  the  products  of  this 
mountain  region. 

The  first  French  fort,  which  was  really  only  a  stockade 
and  stood  just  at  the  point  between  the  two  rivers,  has  long 
since  disappeared.  Under  English  rule  a  more  extensive 
fortification  of  five  bastions  with  a  moat  and  stone  wall  was 
begun,  but  it  was  still  unfinished  when  the  last  British  garrison 
left  it  in  the  year  1774.  For  a  long  time  before  that  peace  had 
prevailed  with  all  the  Indian  nations;  and  consequently  this 
and  other  fortified  places  on  the  Ohio,  Wabash,  Illinois  and 
Mississippi  were  regarded  as  unnecessary,  and  the  garrisons 
withdrawn.     The  Americans,  to  whom  this  fort  was  of  much 

»  A  most  singularly  exaggerated  statement. 


Pittsburg  and  the  Monongahela  Country     103 

assistance  in  the  last  war,  have  spent  nothing  more  on  it,  but 
on  account  of  the  Indians  have  constantly  kept  a  considerable 
garrison  here,  which  at  present  is  on  the  point  of  withdrawing. 
Because  of  its  position  the  fort  can  only  be  useful  against  Indians, 
for  it  is  entirely  commanded  by  various  neighboring  hills, 
particularly  by  a  high  hill  lying  directly  opposite  the  fort  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Monongahela,  here  only  some  1,200  feet  wide, 
and  from  which  it  is  even  maintained  that  the  Indians  have 
shot  their  arrows  into  the  very  middle  of  the  fort. 

There  was  another  little  fort  thirty  miles  up  the  river 
from  here  at  Macintosh  and  still  another  at  Wheeling.  The 
garrisons  maintained  here  made  some  business  for  the  place 
and  also  enlivened  it,  for  during  the  war  there  were  balls,  games, 
concerts  and  theatricals,  all  this  400  miles  west  of  the  ocean. 
The  departure  of  so  many  agreeable  men  and  the  cessation 
of  so  many  pleasures  could  be  regarded  only  with  keen  regret 
by  the  Pittsburg  ladies. 

The  Allegheny  and  Monongahela  come  together  almost  at  a 
right  angle.  The  point  between  them  is  a  sand  hill  deposited 
by  the  current,  which  brings  down  pulverized  gravel  and  the 
same  red  sand  that  is  found  in  the  neighboring  mountains. 
The  banks  are  twenty  to  thirty  feet  above  the  water,  but  this 
deep  bed  is  filled  spring  and  fall,  and  occasionally  the  river  even 
overflows.  Then  we  are  assured  that  a  frigate  of  twenty  guns 
can  pass  all  obstacles  and  sail  safely  down  the  river,  which  then 
has  an  average  depth  of  twenty-five  feet  or  more;  the  current 
is  so  swift  that  boats  can  make  upwards  of  100  miles  a  day  going 
down-stream.  At  first  there  were  only  two  wells  here,  thirty- 
five  feet  deep  and  often  dry.  The  bed  of  both  rivers  was  for- 
merly far  higher  and  on  land  now  dry  and  cultivated.  We 
noticed  two  or  three  hills  rising  one  behind  the  other,  which  have 
exactly  the  outline  and  direction  of  the  point  now  being  formed 
by  the  rivers.  Grantshill  is  the  farthest  of  these  and  lies  half 
a  mile  from  the  river.  From  there  one  can  plainly  distinguish 
the  successive  changes  in  the  river  beds.  Both  rivers  are  now 
so  shallow  in  many  places  that  one  could  ford  them. 

The  low  water  and  the  shortness  of  our  stay  prevented  my 
seeing  anything  of  the  fishes  of  this  region.     It  is  said,  and  it  is 


I04  The  Ohio  River 

also  probable,  that  the  streams  rising  on  the  west  side  of  the 
mountains  and  flowing  into  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  by  way  of 
the  Mississippi  have  only  a  few  sorts  of  fishes  in  common  with 
the  rivers  flowing  into  the  ocean  from  the  east  side.  There  is 
a  species  of  sturgeon,  which  is  described  as  differing  from  the 
sturgeon  of  the  Hudson  and  the  Delaware.  People  tell  about 
large  trout  and  pike,  which  are  like  those  found  in  other  parts 
of  the  country.  Yellow  perch  are  said  to  be  found  there.  A 
sort  of  catfish,  somewhat  similar  to  the  catfish  so  common  in 
the  Delaware  (Silurus  catus  L.),  is  found  weighing  from  thirty 
to  fifty  pounds  and  some  declare  that  farther  down  the  stream 
they  have  seen  specimens  of  this  species  weighing  from  eighty 
to  ICO  pounds.  The  spawning  fishes,  particularly  the  shad 
(Clupea  alosa  L.),  which  in  April  and  May  go  far  up-stream  in 
nearly  all  the  rivers  of  the  eastern  coast,  are  almost  entirely  lack- 
ing in  these  western  rivers. 

A  particular  kind  of  turtle,  which,  however,  I  could  not  get 
a  sight  of,  lives  in  the  Ohio  and  its  branches.  Some  call  it  the 
soft-shelled,  and  others  the  green  turtle.  The  upper  and  middle 
part  of  the  shell  is  hard,  but  the  edges  are  said  to  be  soft  and 
pliable,  and  the  whole  shell  may  be  cooked  to  a  jelly.  The 
hind  feet  are  said  to  be  web-footed,  as  with  sea-turtles,  the 
fore  feet  are  provided  with  toes,  and  the  meat  is  good  to  eat. 
Snapping  turtles  are  also  found  in  the  waters  of  the  Ohio.  .  .  . 

The  entire  region  about  Fort  Pitt  is  hilly,  but  all  the  hills 
are  fertile,  with  good  soil,  rich  pasture-land  alternating  with 
well-grown  timber.  As  this  is  not  so  generally  the  case  on  the 
east  side  of  the  mountains,  almost  every  stranger  who  comes 
here  finds  the  western  country  pleasanter  and  more  desirable. 
There  are  already  dwellings  and  farms  on  the  high  ridge  of  the 
hill  which  slopes  sharply  down  to  the  Monongahela  directly 
opposite  Pittsburg.  At  the  foot  of  the  hill  marble  is  found, 
which  apparently  rests  on  gneiss-hke  rock.  This  marble  is 
bluish,  but  becomes  whiter  as  one  ascends  the  hill.  It  is  harder, 
more  compact  and  of  finer  grain  than  the  common  limestone 
resembhng  it  in  color,  which  is  found  on  the  east  side  of  the 
mountains.  Fine,  beautiful,  liver-colored  marble  is  also  some- 
times found.  It  is  said  that  the  lime  made  from  it  does  not 
absorb  moisture  as  readily  and  does  not  slake  as  quickly  in  the 


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Pittsburg  and  the  Monongahela  Country     105 

air  as  other  lime ;  the  cause  perhaps  is  that  is  it  not  sufficiently 
burnt,  as  nothing  is  yet  known  in  America  of  proper  hme  kilns. 
Above  the  marble  lies  coarse  slate,  which  grows  finer  higher  up 
and  passes  into  a  great  bed  of  the  finest  coal.  This  coal  is  cov- 
ered with  a  layer  of  coarse,  clayey,  soft  and  bright-colored  slate; 
then  follows  again  a  stratum  many  feet  thick  of  very  laminated 
and  micaceous  sandstone  extending  almost  to  the  top  of  the 
hill. 

In  1786,  two  enterprising  young  men,  John  Scull 
and  Joseph  Hall,  ventured  to  invest  their  money  in 
a  newspaper,  and  on  July  29th  the  first  issue  of  the 
Pittsburg  Gazette  made  its  appearance;  the  circula- 
tion was  handicapped  by  the  lack  of  postal  facilities, 
there  being  no  regular  mail.  In  September  a  post 
was  established  to  Bedford,  Pa.,  where  it  was  met  by 
post  from  New  York  and  Virginia.  In  August,  1 789,  it 
appears  from  the  Gazette  there  was  then  settled  in 
the  town  "one  clergyman  of  the  Calvinistic  church, 
Samuel  Barr  and  one  of  the  German  Calvinistic 
church  occasionally  preached  here."  Also  that  "a 
church  of  squared  timber  and  moderate  dimensions 
is  on  the  way  to  be  built."  This  stood  within 
the  ground  now  covered  by  the  First  Presbyterian 
Church. 

Two  "medical  gentlemen"  were  then  in  the  town; 
one  was  Dr.  Bedford ;  also  two  lawyers,  probably  the 
late  Judge  Brackenridge  and  John  Woods. 

Carriage  rate  from  Philadelphia  was  then  six  pence 
for  each  pound ;  a  Gazette  writer  makes  the  following 
prediction:  "However  improved  the  conveyance  may 
be,  and  by  whatever  channel,  the  importation  of  heavy 
articles  w411  still  be  expensive.  The  mantifacturing 
them,  therefore,  will  become  more  an  object  here  than 
elsewhere."     In  1786-87,  a  public  school  was  founded 


io6  The  Ohio  River 

by  the  Legislature,  and  the  First  Presbyterian  Church 
incorporated. 

The  borough  of  Pittsburg  was  incorporated  on 
April  2  2,  1794,  and  the  city  on  March  18,  1816.  The 
borough  of  Allegheny  was  incorporated  April  14,  1828, 
and  was  made  a  city  between  1837  and  1840. 

From  1790  to  1800  [writes  Sherman  Day]  the  business  of 
Pittsburg  and  the  West  was  small,  but  gradually  improving; 
the  fur  trade  of  the  West  was  very  important  and  Messrs.  Peter 
Maynard  and  William  Morrison  were  engaged  largely  in  it, 
and  from  1790  to  1796  received  considerable  supplies  of  goods 
through  Mr.  Guy  Bryan,  a  wealthy  merchant  in  Philadelphia, 
and  the  goods  were  taken  to  Kaskaskia  in  a  barge,  which  annually 
returned  to  Pittsburg,  laden  with  bear,  buffalo  and  deer  skins^ 
and  furs  and  peltries  of  all  kinds,  which  were  sent  to  Mr.  Bryan, 
and  the  barge  returned  laden  with  goods.  At  that  period  there 
was  no  regular  drayman  in  Pittsburg,  and  the  goods  were 
generally  hauled  from  the  boats  with  a  three  horse  wagon, — 
until  (in  1797)  a  Mr.  James  Rattle,  an  Englishman,  settled  in 
this  city,  and  was  encouraged  to  take  up  the  business,  and 
drayed  and  stored  goods,  until  a  box  of  drygoods  was  stolen 
from  his  yard,  and  shed,  (for  then  we  had  no  warehouse,  nor 
regular  commission  merchant,  in  Pittsburg,) — and  this  broke 
the  poor  man  up,  and  he  died   brokenhearted   and   unhappy. 

Hon.  H,  M.  Brackenridge  in  his  Recollections  has 
left  us  a  graphic  picture  of  early  Pittsburg:  which  we 
give  practically  in  his  own  words. 

Two  plains,  partly  short  commons,  depastured  by  the  town 
cows,  embraced  the  foot  of  Grant's  Hill,  one  extending  a  short 
distance  up  the  Monongahela,  the  other  stretching  up  the 
Allegheny  river,  while  the  town  of  straggling  houses,  easily 
counted,  and  more  of  logs  than  frame,  and  more  of  the  latter 
than  of  brick  or  stone,  lay  from  the  junction  of  the  Monon- 
gahela. On  the  bank  of  the  Allegheny  at  the  distance  of  a  long 
Sunday  afternoon's  walk,  stood  Fort  Fayette,  surmounted  by 


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Pittsburg  and  the  Monongahela  Country     107 

the  stripes  and  stars  of  the  old  thirteen  :  and  from  this  place 
the  King's  Orchard,  or  garden,  extending  to  the  ditch  of  old 
Fort  Pitt,  the  name  by  which  the  little  town  was  known.  On 
the  north  side  of  the  river  just  mentioned,  the  hills  rose  rude 
and  rough,  without  the  smoke  of  a  single  chimney. 

The  clear  and  beautiful  Allegheny,  the  loveliest  stream 
that  ever  glistened  to  the  moon,  was  still  the  boundary  of 
civilization;  for  all  beyond  it  was  called  the  Indian  country, 
and  associated  in  the  mind  with  many  a  fireside  tale  of  scalping- 
knife,  hair-breadth  escapes,  and  all  the  horrors  of  savage  warfare. 
Beyond  the  Monongahela  the  hill  rose  from  the  water's  edge, 
with  some  two  or  three  puny  houses  squeezed  in  between  it  and 
the  river.  On  its  summit  stood  the  farmhouse  and  bam  of 
Major  Kirkpatrick;  the  bam  was  burnt  down  by  the  heroes  of 
the  "Whiskey  Insurrection. 

Grant's  Hill  was  a  favorite  promenade  in  fine  weather,  and 
on  Sunday  afternoon  it  was  pleasing  to  see  the  line  of  well- 
dressed  ladies  and  gentlemen  and  children — nearly  the  whole 
population  —  repairing  to  this  beautiful  eminence.  It  was 
considered  so  essential  to  the  comfort  and  recreation  of  the  in- 
habitants, that  they  could  scarcely  imagine  how  a  town  could 
exist  without  its  Grant's  Hill!  There  was  a  fine  spring  half 
way  up,  which  was  supposed  to  afford  better  water  than  that 
of  the  pumps,  and  some  persons  even  thought  it  was  possessed 
of  medical  properties — which  might  be  the  case,  after  a  pleas- 
ant afternoon's  walk,  and  the  toil  in  overcoming  the  steep 
ascent. 

In  1786  the  population  of  Pittsburg  was  about 
500;  in  1796  it  was  1395;  in  1810,  4768;  in  1820, 
7248;  in  1830,  12,542;  in  1840,  21,115.  In  1847  the 
estimated  population  including  the  suburbs  Allegheny, 
Manchester,  Birmingham,  Lawrenceville,  and  others 
was  47,000. 

To  exhibit  a  steady  growth  [we  read  in  Pittsburg  and 
Alleglieny  in  the  Centennial  Year]  with  the  population  of  the 
South  and  West,  the  ratio  of  four-tenths  of  one  per  cent,  of 


]o8  The  Ohio  River 

that  population  is  all  that  would  be  required  to  be  main- 
tained. In  1810  the  population  of  the  city  was  4,786,  or  nine- 
twentieths  of  one  per  cent. ;  the  ratio  of  four-tenths  of  one  per 
cent,  being  only  4,300.  In  1820  the  population  of  the  city 
was  7,248,  being  not  qtiite  three-tenths  of  one  per  cent.;  the  ratio 
of  four-tenths  requiring  10,164  inhabitants.  At  this  period  the 
business  of  the  city  was  in  a  ruined  condition  in  consequence  of 
the  reaction  in  the  prices  and  activities  of  the  war  of  181 2,  under 
which  Pittsburg  had  been  very  prosperous.  In  1830  the  main- 
taining of  the  ratio  of  four-tenths  of  one  per  cent,  would  reqmre 
that  Pittsburg  should  have  13,324  inhabitants;  it  had  at  that 
date  16,988,  or  five-tenths  of  one  per  cent.  In  1840  the  ratio 
of  1800  required  a  population  of  20,692;  there  was  38,931  or 
fifteen-twentieths  of  one  per  cent.  In  1850  the  population  of 
Pittsburg  was  equal  to  nineteen-twentieths  of  one  per  cent, 
of  that  of  the  West  and  South,  or  79,873,  while  the  maintenance 
of  the  ratio  of  four-tenths  would  demand  but  33,676.  In  i860 
the  ratio  of  four-tenths  of  one  per  cent,  required  a  population  of 
45,956,  and  there  was  124,844,  or  one  and  nearly  one-tenth 
per  cent.  In  1870,  the  community  of  Pittsburg  and  Allegheny 
numbered  199,130,  being  one  and  nearly  four-tenths  per  cent, 
of  the  population  of  the  West  and  South;  the  ratio  of  1800 
only  requiring  58,322  inhabitants,  that  being  four-tenths  of  one 
per  cent,  of  the  then  population  of  the  Southern  and  Western 
States.  .  .  . 

From  1817  to  1825,  the  same  publication  informs 
us  Pittsburg  was  at  a  standstill,  from  effects  produced 
by  the  termination  of  the  War  of  1 8 1 2 .  In  1 8 1 7  many 
factories  stopped  and  until  182 1  there  was  a  continual 
drop  of  values  in  all  business  and  property.  In  182 1 
the  distress  appeared  to  have  reached  its  height; 
manufactories,  trade,  and  industry  were  all  prostrated. 
In  May  the  price  of  flour  was  one  dollar  a  barrel; 
boards  were  two  dollars  per  thousand  feet;  whiskey, 
fifteen  cents  a  gallon;  sheep  and  calves,  one  dollar 
per  head.     It  required  a  bushel  and  a  half  of  wheat 


Court  House. 


K    <fc 


% 


Pittsburg  and  the  Monongahela  Country     109 

to  buy  a  pound  of  coffee,  and  twelve  barrels  of  flour  to 
purchase  a  yard  of  superfine  broadcloth. 

In  1825  and  1826  a  rallying  era  set  in,  and  in  1830 
was  at  full  tide.  In  1837  it  suffered  with  other  cities 
retarded  by  the  subsidence  of  the  land  speculation 
fever  and  panic.  Notwithstanding  these  adverse  years 
from  1820  to  1830,  there  was  an  increase  equal  to  135 
per  cent.,  or  13 J  per  cent,  a  year;  from  1830  to  1840 
an  increase  of  129  per  cent.,  or  about  13  per  cent. 

In  1800  the  population  of  that  section  of  the  Western  States 
to  which  Pittsburg  had  access  by  her  rivers  then,  and  her  rail- 
roads now,  as  well,  was  385,647.  In  1803  the  value  of  the  city's 
business  was  $350,000,  or  91.2  per  cent,  of  the  population  which 
furnished  her  market.  Having  at  that  time,  without  rivalries 
or  competition,  nearly  one  dollar  of  business  per  capita  with 
the  population  of  the  market  she  controlled,  it  might  have  been, 
perhaps,  by  some  thought  somewhat  sanguine  to  expect  that 
through  all  the  growth  of  population,  under  all  the  rivalries 
of  other  cities  and  manufacturing  districts  that  must  arise, 
Pittsburg  should  continue  to  hold  a  progress  equal  with  that 
growth,  and  maintain  a  trade  of  equal  per  capita  proportions 
as  that  with  which,  having  no  competition,  she  started.  At 
that  time  the  wonderful  development  of  the  West  was  not  con- 
ceived of.  Could  that  development  have  been  foreseen,  and  the 
great,  active  ambitious  communities  that  have  arisen,  it  would 
have  been  thought  yet  more  sanguine  to  hope  the  city  would 
keep  a  trade  equal  to  one  dollar  per  capita  through  all  the  com- 
petitions that  would  arise.  But  Httle  more  could  be  asked  than 
that  a  city  should  grow  in  trade  in  the  same  ratio  of  increase 
as  that  of  her  market,  especially  if  competitions,  foreign  as  well 
as  home,  for  the  trade  of  that  market  would  not  only  arise,  but 
increase,  within  the  market  itself,  by  reason  of  the  market's 
own  inherent  facilities  and  growth. 

As  before  stated,  in  1800  the  trade  of  Pittsburg  was  equal 
to  91.2  per  cent,  of  the  population  of  the  West.  In  18 10  the 
population  of  the  South  and  West  being  1,073,531,  the  business 


no  The  Ohio  River 

of  Pittsburg  was,  by  estimates  then  made,  $1,000,000,  or  93 
per  cent.  In  1820  the  census  gives  the  population  of  the  section 
designated  at  2,541,522,  while  in  181 7  the  business  of  Pittsburg 
was  stated  at  $2,266,366,  or  a  fraction  short  of  90  per  cent.  In 
1830  there  were  in  the  same  section  of  the  Union  3,331,298  peo- 
ple, but  there  is  no  record  of  the  value  of  the  business  of  the  city 
at  that  date.  In  1840  the  population  of  the  Western  and  South- 
western States  was  5,173,949  and  in  1836  the  business  of  Pitts- 
burg had  been  shown  to  be  $31,146,550,  being  something  over 
600  per  cent.,  or  six  dollars  per  capita,  showing  that  the  business 
of  the  city  had  more  than  kept  pace  in  its  original  ratio  with  the 
population  of  the  West. 

In  1850  the  population  of  the  West  was  8,419,179,  and  the 
value  of  the  business  of  Pittsburg  given  by  authorities  of  that 
date,  at  $50,000,000,  or  about  the  same  ratio  of  six  dollars  per 
capita  as  in  1840.  In  i860  the  population  of  the  Western  and 
Southern  States,  under  comparison,  was  11,498,318.  Of  the 
value  of  business  of  the  community  for  i860  there  are  no  reliable 
figures,  the  census  of  that  year  of  Allegheny  County  having  been 
greatly  deficient  in  comprehensiveness.  In  1865,  however,  a 
private  compilation  of  the  statistics  of  the  city,  published  in 
Pittsburg  As  It  Is,  before  cited,  shows  the  manufacturing  and 
wholesale  business  to  have  been  $70,000,000,  by  which  it  is  clear 
that  the  ratio  of  six  dollars  per  capita  was  maintained  at  that 
date,  and  leaving  it  very  probable  that  an  increase  thereon  was 
attained  in  i860.  In  1870  the  population  of  the  section  of  the 
Union  with  whose  increase  the  progress  of  the  business  of  Pitts- 
burg is  being  compared  was  11,583,567;  but  in  that  last  decade 
the  trade  of  Pittsburg  had  largely  found  eastern  as  well  as 
western  markets,  and  the  ratios  of  trade  and  inhabitants  should 
be  with  eastern  as  well  as  western  populations. 

Pittsburg  to-day  covers  an  area  of  twenty-eight  and 
one  fourth  square  miles  and  its  population  is  now  about 
350,000;  its  net  public  debt  is  $14,023,461  and  the 
assessed  valuation  $272,716,664;  the  tax  rate  is  $1.50. 
The  Greater  Pittsburg,  however,  includes  Allegheny, 
which  contains  eight  and  one  half  square  miles,  and 


% 


%<^%, 

'-^^->% 


1^ 


Pittsburg  and  the  Mononghalea  Country     1 1 1 

a  population  of  140,000;  its  public  debt  is  $5,421,- 
300,  and  its  assessed  valuation  of  taxable  property 
$85,601,225;  the  tax  rate  is  the  same  as  in  Pittsburg. 
Thus  the  Greater  Pittsburg  has  a  population  of  about 
half  a  million,  where  136  years  ago  George  Washington 
counted  twenty  poor  cabins  beside  the  Monongahela. 


Chapter  VI 
The  Ohio  in  the  Revolution 

THE  Virginia  shore  of  the  Ohio  was  receiving 
pioneers  as  we  have  seen  by  the  beginning  of 
the  Revolution  in  1775,  though  they  did  not 
build  their  homes  upon  that  river  in  its  lower 
extremity ;  on  the  upper  Ohio  the  Wheeling  settlement 
was  begun  in  1769  and  the  Grave  Creek  settlement,  the 
present  Moundsville,  West  Virginia,  about  1770.  Fort 
Patrick  Henry  (formerly  Fort  Fincastle)  at  Wheeling 
was  the  only  fort  on  the  Ohio  between  Fort  Pitt  and 
"the  Falls"  at  Louisville,  where  Captain  Bullitt  laid 
out  a  town  in  August,  17 73,  for  Doctor  John  Connolly, 
commanding  at  Fort  Pitt;  and,  though  there  are  good 
evidences  of  pioneers  having  settled  here  by  1775, 
there  is  no  record  of  a  permanent  establishment  until 
General  George  Rogers  Clark  left  a  few  families  gar- 
risoned on  Com  Island  above  the  falls  in  1778  when 
going  down  to  the  capture  of  Kaskaskia  and  Vin- 
cennes.  Though  the  "bottoms"  along  the  river  were 
almost  all  surveyed  and  patented  by  the  outbreak  of 
the  Revolution,  very  few  actual  settlements  had  been 
made  upon  them  on  the  Virginia  side,  and  perhaps 
none  whatever  on  the  "Indian  side,  "  as  the  Ohio,  In- 
diana, and  Illinois  shore  of  the  river  was  long  known 

112 


The  Ohio  in  the  Revolution  113 

The  rapid  advance  of  the  Virginians  into  this  land 
they  had  **  bought "  from  the  Six  Nations  provoked  the 
Shawanese  on  the  Scioto  beyond  all  conciliation;  the 
barbarity  of  many  of  this  first  cohort  of  pioneers 
was,  undoubtedly,  exasperating  and  utterly  wanton; 
a  bloody  fight  was  precipitated  by  several  mur- 
ders committed  by  the  whites,  particularly  that 
perpetrated  by  a  party  under  one  Greathouse  on 
drunken  Indians  (made  drunk  by  the  white  man's 
"  fire- water  ")  near  the  mouth  of  Yellow  Creek.  The 
episode  gave  rise  to  a  fiction  which  is  known  almost  as 
wide  as  the  Ohio  River  itself;  Logan,  an  Indian  (but  not 
a  chief),  compelled  a  captive  in  his  possession  to  write 
a  message  in  gunpowder  ink  to  Captain  Cresap  asking 
an  explanation  for  the  killing  of  his  kindred  at  Yellow 
Creek;  the  message  was  left  attached  to  the  handle 
of  a  tomahawk  at  a  murdered  white  settler's  door 
and  came  into  the  hands  of  Simon  Girty  who  trans- 
lated it  and  passed  it  on  to  Colonel  John  Gibson  who 
in  turn  "paraphrased  the  Bible  and  in  part  adopted 
the  biblical  style"  and  sent  it  to  Governor  Dunmore; 
it  came  then  to  Thomas  Jefferson's  hands  who  pub- 
lished it  as  "the  greatest  of  Indian  prose  elegies."^ 

'Jefferson's  version  of  the  speech  was  as  follows:  "I  appeal  to  any 
white  man  to  say  if  ever  he  entered  Logan's  cabin  hungry  and  he  gave 
him  not  meat,  if  ever  he  came  cold  and  naked  and  he  clothed  him  not. 
During  the  course  of  the  last  long  and  bloody  war,  Logan  remained  idle 
in  his  cabin,  an  advocate  for  peace.  Such  was  my  love  for  the  whites 
that  my  countrymen  pointed  as  they  passed  and  said  '  Logan  is  the  friend 
of  white  men. '  I  had  even  thought  to  have  lived  with  you,  but  for  the 
injuries  of  one  man.  Colonel  Cresap,  last  spring,  in  cold  blood  and  un- 
provoked, murdered  all  the  relations  of  Logan,  not  even  sparing  my 
women  and  children.  There  runs  not  a  drop  of  my  blood  in  the  veins  of 
any  living  creature.  This  called  on  me  for  revenge.  I  have  sought  it. 
I  have  killed  many.  I  have  fully  glutted  my  vengeance.  For  my 
coimtry  I  rejoice  at  the  beams  of  peace;    but  do  not  harbor  a  thought 


114  The  Ohio  River 

"I  challenge,"  Jefferson  said,  "the  whole  orations  of 
Demosthenes  and  Cicero  ...  to  produce  a  single 
passage  superior.  .  .  ."  Certainly  few  "orations" 
ever  contained  more  errors.  "Colonel"  (Captain) 
Cresap  was  so  far  distant  from  the  Yellow  Creek  murder 
(at  least  fifty  miles)  that  George  Rogers  Clark,  when  he 
heard  of  Jefferson's  edition  of  Logan's  speech,  chaffed 
Cresap  on  being  such  a  warrior  that  all  the  crimes  on 
the  frontier  were  laid  at  his  door.  The  main  part  of 
the  speech — Logan's  kinlessness — was  utterly  false.^ 

The  true  thing  in  it  was  the  revenge,  for  the  Indians 
on  the  "Indian  side"  of  the  Ohio  descended  upon  the 
Monongahela  country  and  the  settlements  along  the 
Ohio  with  a  fury  equal  to  anything  known  in  the  French 
and  Indian  War  or  Pontiac's  Rebellion.  The  land 
was  theirs  far  more  than  it  belonged  to  the  Six  Nations 
who  "sold"  it  to  the  Virginians,  and  what  was  known 
as  Dunmore's  War,  from  the  Governor  of  Virginia, 
was  now  fought  with  the  Shawanese  in  order  to  es- 
tablish the  terms  of  the  treaty  of  Fort  Stanwix. 

The  plan  of  campaign  was  extensive,  and,  com- 
paratively, well  executed.  The  Earl  of  Dunmore  was 
to  lead  one  wing  of  an  army  down  the  Ohio  by  way 
of  Fort  Pitt,  while  General  Andrew  Lewis,  the  tried 
fighter  of  the  French  and  Indian  War,  was  to  lead  the 
west  wing  from  the  point  of  rendezvous  (the  Green- 
briar  settlements)  down  Mary  Ingles's  route  along  the 
Great  Kanawha;  the  consolidation  of  the  armies  was 
to  take  place  near  the  mouth  of  the  Great  Kanawha, 

that  mine  is  the  joy  of  fear.  Logan  never  felt  fear.  He  will  not  turn  on 
his  heel  to  save  his  life.      Who  is  there  to  mourn  for  Logan?     Not  one!" 

1  See   Whittlesey,    Fugitive  Essays,    143;    Butterfield,   History  of  the 
Giriys,  29;   Moore,  The  Northwest  wider  Three  Flags,  191. 


Logan  (Tah-Gah-Jute),  a  Ca5^uga  Chief. 

From  an  old  print. 


The  Ohio  in  the  Revolution  115 

and  the  Shawanese  country  was  to  be  invaded.  Dun- 
more  vacillated  more  or  less  but  in  effect  carried  out 
his  coup;  each  wing  was  to  number  about  fifteen 
hundred  men,  and  Dunmore  had  under  him  several 
able  and  enthusiastic  men,  including  George  Rogers 
Clark,  Simon  Kenton,  Michael  Cresap,  and  Simon 
Girty.  This  right  wing  set  sail  on  the  Ohio  in  an 
hundred  canoes,  rafts,  and  pirogues,  and  landed  in 
what  is  now  the  State  of  Ohio  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Hockhocking,  where  a  stockade  was  erected. 

The  brilliant  Shawanese  leader  Cornstalk  gathered 
his  warriors  to  the  number  equal  to  Dunmore's  force, 
but  craftily  threw  his  legions  across  the  Ohio  to  destroy 
Lewis's  army  first;  the  Indians  would  then  be  between 
Dunmore  and  his  base  of  supplies.  The  manoeuvre 
was  typical  of  Indian  cunning  in  war  to  be  noted 
more  at  length  in  another  chapter.  Lewis's  force  had 
been  raised  in  that  scattered  ring  of  settlements  on 
the  New,  Holston,  Watauga,  Clinch,  and  Greenbrier 
rivers,  and  was  composed,  as  Roosevelt  well  remarks, 
of  as  brave  and  stalwart  class  of  men  as  "were  ever 
got  together  on  this  continent."  Every  one  was  a 
borderer  with  a  rifle  proved  in  many  a  bloody  skir- 
mish or  rollicking  shooting  match;  if  Cornstalk's  sleek, 
painted  warriors  could  rout  these  brown  regiments 
Dunmore  might  well  look  with  anxiety  to  his  laurels 
and  his  scalp. 

The  shock  of  battle  came  suddenly  when  Lewis 
neared  the  mouth  of  the  Great  Kanawha — the  first 
and  last  pitched  battle  ever  fought  on  the  immediate 
shore  of  the  Ohio  River.  No  better  account  of  this 
struggle  and  its  importance  exists  than  Roosevelt's 
in  his  Winning  of  the  West. 


ii6  The  Ohio  River 

Instantly  the  drums  beat  to  arms,  and  the  backwoodsmen — 
lying  out  in  the  open,  rolled  in  their  blankets — started  from 
the  ground,  looked  to  their  flints  and  priming,  and  were  ready 
on  the  moment.  The  general,  thinking  he  had  only  a  scouting 
party  to  deal  with,  ordered  out  Col.  Charles  Lewis  and  Col. 
Fleming,  each  with  one  hundred  and  fifty  men.  Fleming  had 
the  left,  and  marched  up  the  bank  of  the  Ohio,  while  Lewis,  on 
the  right,  kept  some  little  distance  inland.  They  went  about 
half  a  mile.  Then,  just  before  sunrise,  while  it  was  still  dusk, 
the  men  in  camp,  eagerly  listening,  heard  the  reports  of  three 
guns,  immediately  succeeded  by  a  clash  like  a  peal  of  thin 
thunder,  as  hundreds  of  rifles  rang  out  together.  It  was  evident 
that  the  attack  was  serious  and  Col.  Field  was  at  once  despatched 
to  the  front  with  two  hundred  men. 

He  came  only  just  in  time.  At  the  first  fire  both  of  the 
scouts  in  front  of  the  white  line  had  been  killed.  The  attack 
fell  first,  and  with  especial  fury,  on  the  division  of  Charles 
Lewis,  who  himself  was  mortally  wounded  at  the  very  outset; 
he  had  not  taken  a  tree,  but  was  in  an  open  piece  of  ground, 
cheering  on  his  men,  when  he  was  shot.  He  stayed  with  them 
until  the  line  was  formed,  and  then  walked  back  to  camp  un- 
assisted, giving  his  gun  to  a  man  who  was  near  him.  His  men, 
who  were  drawn  up  on  the  high  ground  skirting  Crooked  Run, 
began  to  waver,  but  were  rallied  by  Fleming,  whose  division 
had  been  attacked  almost  simultaneously,  until  he  too  was 
struck  down  by  a  bullet.  The  line  then  gave  way,  except  that 
some  of  Fleming's  men  still  held  their  own  on  the  left  in  a  patch 
of  rugged  ground  near  the  Ohio.  At  this  moment,  however, 
Colonel  Field  came  up  and  restored  the  battle,  while  the  back- 
woodsmen who  had  been  left  in  camp  also  began  to  hurry  up 
to  take  part  in  the  fight.  General  Lewis  at  last,  fully  awake  to 
the  danger,  began  to  fortify  the  camp  by  felling  timber  so  as 
to  form  a  breastwork  running  across  the  point  from  the  Ohio  to 
the  Kanawha.  This  work  should  have  been  done  before;  and 
through  attending  to  it  Lewis  was  unable  to  take  any  personal 
part  in  the  battle. 

Meanwhile  the  frontiersmen  began  to  push  back  their  foes, 
led  by  Col.  Field.     The  latter  himself,  however,  was  soon  slain; 


O 

O 
u 

a 
pq 


^-d. 


The  Ohio  in  the  Revolution  n; 

he  was  at  the  time  behind   a  great  tree,  and  was  shot  by  two 
Indians  on  his  right,  while  he  was  trying  to  get  a  shot  at  an- 
other on  his  left,  who  was  distracting  his  attention  by  mocking 
and  jeering  at  him.     The  command  then  fell  on  Captain  Evan 
Shelby,  who  turned  his  company  over  to  the  charge  of  his  son, 
Isaac.     The  troops  fought  on  steadily,  undaunted  by  the  fall 
of. their  leaders,  while  the  Indians  attacked  with  the  utmost 
skill,  caution,  and  bravery.    The  fight  was  a  succession  of  single 
combats,  each  man  sheltering  himself  behind  a  stump,  or  rock, 
or  tree  trunk,  the  superiority  of  the  backwoodsmen  in  the  use 
of  the  rifle  being  offset  by  the  superiority  of  their  foes  in  the 
art   of  hiding   and   of   shielding   themselves   from   harm.     The 
hostile  lines,  though  about  a  mile  and  a  quarter  in  length,  were 
so  close  together,  being  never  more  than  twenty  yards  apart, 
that  many  of  the  combatants  grappled  in  hand-to-hand  fighting, 
and  tomahawked  or  stabbed  each  other  to  death.     The  clatter 
of  the  rifles  was  incessant,  while  above  the  din  could  be  heard 
the  cries  and  groans  of  the  wounded,  and  the  shouts  of  the  com- 
batants, as  each  encouraged  his  own  side,  or  jeered  savagely  at 
his  adversaries.     The  cheers  of  the  whites  mingled  with  the 
appalling  war-whoops  and  yells  of  their  foes.     The  Indians  also 
called  out  to  the  Americans  in  broken  English,  taunting  them, 
and  asking  them  why  their  fifes  were  no  longer  whistling — for 
the  fight  was  far  too  close  to  permit  of  any  such  music.     Their 
headmen  walked  up  and  down  behind  their  warriors,  exhorting 
them  to  go  in  close,  to  shoot  straight,  and  to  bear  themselves 
well  in  the  fight ;  while  throughout  the  action  the  whites  opposite 
Cornstalk  could  hear  his  deep,  sonorous  voice  as  he  cheered  on 
his  braves,  and  bade  them  "be  strong,  be  strong. " 

About  noon  the  Indians  tried  to  get  round  the  flank  of  the 
whites,  into  their  camp;  but  this  movement  was  repulsed,  and 
a  party  of  the  Americans  followed  up  their  advantage,  and 
running  along  the  banks  of  the  Kanawha  out-flanked  the  enemy 
in  turn  The  Indians  being  pushed  very  hard  now  began  to 
fall  back,  the  best  fighters  covering  the  retreat,  while  the  wounded 
were  being  carried  off;  although  —  a  rare  thing  in  Indian 
battles — they  were  pressed  so  close  that  they  were  able  to  bear 
away  but  a  portion  of  their  dead.     The  whites  were  forced  to 


1 1 8  The  Ohio  River 

pursue  with  the  greatest  caution ;  for  those  of  them  who  advanced 
heedlessly  were  certain  to  be  ambushed  and  receive  a  smart 
check.  Finally,  about  one  o'clock,  the  Indians,  in  their  retreat, 
reached  a  very  strong  position,  where  the  underbrush  was  very 
close  and  there  were  many  fallen  logs  and  steep  banks.  Here 
they  stood  resolutely  at  bay,  and  the  whites  did  not  dare  attack 
them  in  such  a  stronghold.  So  the  action  came  almost  to  an 
end;  though  skirmishing  went  on  until  about  an  hour  before 
sunset,  the  Indians  still  at  times  taunting  their  foes  and  calling 
out  to  them  that  they  had  eleven  hundred  men  as  well  as  the 
whites,  and  that  to-morrow  they  were  going  to  be  two  thousand 
strong.  This  was  only  bravado,  however;  they  had  suffered 
too  heavily  to  renew  the  attack,  and  under  cover  of  darkness 
they  slipped  away,  and  made  a  most  skilful  retreat,  carrying 
all  their  wounded  in  safety  across  the  Ohio.  The  exhausted 
Americans,  having  taken  a  number  of  scalps,  as  well  as  forty 
guns,  and  many  tomahawks  and  some  other  plunder,  returned 
to  their  camp. 

The  battle  had  been  bloody  as  well  as  stubborn.  The  whites, 
though  the  victors,  had  suffered  more  than  their  foes,  and  indeed 
had  won  only  because  it  was  against  the  entire  policy  of  Indian 
warfare  to  suffer  a  severe  loss,  even  if  a  victory  could  be  gained 
thereby.  Of  the  whites,  some  seventy-five  men  had  been 
killed  or  mortally  wounded,  and  one  hundred  and  forty  severely 
or  slightly  wounded,  so  that  they  lost  a  fifth  of  their  whole 
number.  The  Indians  had  not  lost  much  more  than  half  as 
many;  about  forty  warriors  were  killed  outright  or  died  of 
their  wounds.  Among  the  Indians  no  chief  of  importance  was 
slain;  whereas  the  Americans  had  seventeen  officers  killed  or 
wounded,  and  lost  in  succession  their  second,  third,  and  fourth 
in  command.  The  victors  buried  their  own  dead  and  left  the 
bodies  of  the  vanquished  to  the  wolves  and  ravens.  At  mid- 
night, after  the  battle,  Col.  Christian  and  his  Fincastle  men 
reached  the  ground. 

The  battle  of  the  Great  Kanawha  was  a  purely  American 
victory,  for  it  was  fought  solely  by  the  backwoodsmen  them- 
selves. Their  immense  superiority  over  regular  troops  in  such 
contests  can  be  readily  seen  when  their  triumph  on  this  occasion 


The  Ohio  in  the  Revolution  119 

is  compared  with  the  defeats  previously  suffered  by  Braddock's 
grenadiers  and  Grant's  highlanders,  at  the  hands  of  the  same 
foes.  It  was  purely  a  soldiers'  battle,  won  by  hard  individual 
fighting;  there  was  no  display  of  generalship,  except  on  Corn- 
stalk's part.  It  was  the  most  closely  contested  of  any  battle 
ever  fought  with  the  northwestern  Indians ;  and  it  was  the  only 
victory  gained  over  a  large  body  of  them  by  a  force  but  slightly 
superior  in  numbers.  Both  because  of  the  character  of  the 
fight  itself,  and  because  of  the  results  that  flowed  from  it,  it  is 
worthy  of  being  held  in  especial  remembrance.^ 

For  throughout  the  bloody  years  1 775-1 783  the 
Ohio  River  was  the  boundary  line  between  the  ad- 
vancing pioneers  from  the  southwest  and  the  British 
and  Indians  in  the  northwest ;  not  only  was  it  a  boun- 
dary line,  but  also  the  one  great  avenue  of  ingress  and 
egress  where  countless  minor  battles  were  fought  on 
water  and  forest-bound  shore.  The  American  head- 
quarters were  at  Fort  Pitt ;  the  British  at  Fort  Detroit. 
The  former  attempted  to  neutralize  the  Indians  in 
the  Black  Forest  that  lay  between  them,  and  indeed 
it  was  two  years  before  active  war  in  the  West  was 
begun.  The  Delawares  on  the  Muskingum  remained 
neutral  until  near  the  close  of  the  war ;  the  British,  how- 
ever, were  successful  in  arousing  the  fighting  blood  of 
the  Wyandots  and  Shawanese  as  early  as  1777,  and 
with  them  ran  the  off  scouring  of  a  dozen  known  and 
unknown  Indian  nations  of  the  West  and  North,  wild 
for  the  war-path  and  the  bounty  for  scalps. 

The  principal  argument  of  the  British  was  the 
effective  one  of  the  American  pioneer  advance;  for 
with  the  tireless,  unconquerable  movement  of  the 
ocean    tides    the   line   of   pioneer   settlements   swept 

>  The  Winning  of  tlte  West,  i.,  228-233. 


I20  The  Ohio  River 

nearer  and  nearer  to  the  Ohio  each  year.  Here  and 
there,  of  course,  it  wavered,  as  a  battle-Hne  is  now  and 
again  staggered  by  the  impetuous  shock  of  the  enemy, 
but  when  the  crushing  blows  of  the  savage  raids  spent 
their  force,  the  marvellous  movement  was  evident  in 
a  moment's  time.  It  is  more  than  surprising  what 
a  large  population  of  pioneers  crept  into  the  valleys 
made  by  the  smaller  tributaries  of  the  Ohio  in  what  is 
now  southwestern  Pennsylvania  and  West  Virginia, 
compared  with  the  slight  population  on  the  Ohio 
River  itself.  While  Pittsburg  and  Wheeling  were 
almost  the  only  settlements  worthy  of  the  name  on 
the  upper  Ohio  before  1790  a  score  of  settlements 
were  made  to  the  southward  on  the  Youghiogheny, 
Monongahela,  and  Cheat  rivers ;  the  towns  of  Browns- 
ville, Clarksburg,  Morgantown,  Washington,  and  Union- 
town  all  became  prominent  at  a  very  early  date.  It 
was  upon  Washington  and  Fayette  counties  in  Penn- 
sylvania and  the  Panhandle  of  West  Virginia — the 
"Monongahela  country" — that  the  first  blows  of  the 
Revolution  in  the  West  were  struck,  while  it  may  be 
said  that  the  brunt  of  the  struggle  was  borne  by  the 
Kentucky  settlements,  which  grew  steadily  from  1775 
to  1783.  Fort  Pitt  was  not  attacked  by  Indians  or 
British  during  the  war,  though  officers  at  both  Detroit 
and  Fort  Pitt  laid  plans  to  move  in  force  upon  the 
other.  Among  the  hundreds  of  small  actions  that 
took  place  on  the  Ohio  during  the  seven  years,  the 
attacks  on  Fort  Henry  at  Wheeling  in  1777  and  1782 
and  the  defeat  of  Colonel  David  Rogers  near  Cincin- 
nati in  1779  stand  conspicuous  as  the  most  important 
fights  on  the  river,  as  well  as  typical  of  the  two  kinds 
of  border  warfare  known  in  the  West. 


O 

Oh 


O        !/3 

0) 


c 
o 


72 

c 
o 


The  Ohio  in  the  Revolution  121 

In  1774,  five  years  after  the  Zane  settlement  at 
Wheeling  was  made,  Fort  Henry  (Fincastle)  was 
built.  It  lay  upon  the  bank  of  the  Ohio  a  quarter 
of  a  mile  above  the  mouth  of  Wheeling  Creek;  in 
shape  it  was  a  parallelogram  of  square  pickets  pointed 
at  the  top,  covering  something  more  than  half  an 
acre;    bastions  and  sentry  boxes  covered  the  angles; 

within  the  fort  were  log  barracks,  an  officers'  house,  a  store- 
house, a  well,  and  cabins  for  famihes.  A  steep  hill  rises  not 
far  inland;  between  the  fort  and  the  base  of  this  hill  the  forest 
had  been  levelled,  and  a  few  log  cabins  were  nestled  in  the  open. 
Such  was  Wheeling  in  1777. 

In  midsummer  the  neutral  Delaware  chieftain  White 
Eyes  came  to  Fort  Pitt  and  announced  that  it  was 
common  talk  in  the  Indian  land  that  "the  Indians 
were  going  to  take  Wheeling  home,"  General  Hand, 
commanding  at  Fort  Pitt,  at  once  warned  David 
Shepherd,  the  Wheeling  pioneer  and  lieutenant  of 
Ohio  County,  to  rally  all  the  fighters  of  the  ' '  Pan- 
handle" at  Fort  Henry.  By  the  last  of  August 
Shepherd  sent  word  that  the  fort  was  "Indian  proof. " 
The  non-arrival  of  the  enemy  made  the  whites  relax 
in  vigilance,  and  of  eleven  companies  that  had  gathered 
all  but  two  departed  for  the  interior ;  the  two  remain- 
ing were  under  the  command  of  Captains  Joseph  Ogle 
and  Samuel  Mason. 

The  savage  army  took  quick  advantage  of  the 
carelessness  of  the  borderers.  On  the  night  of  the 
last  day  of  August  Captain  Ogle  with  twelve  ccouts 
returned  to  the  fort  and  announced  that  no  Indians 
were  to  be  found. 

In  the  course  of  that  night,  however  [writes  Withers,  the 


122  The  Ohio  River 

historian  of  the  borderland],  the  Indian  army,  consisting  of  three 
hundred  and  eighty-nine  warriors,  came  near  to  the  village,  and 
believing  from  the  lights  in  the  fort  that  the  inhabitants  were 
on  their  guard,  and  that  more  might  be  effected  by  an  ambus- 
cade in  the  morning  than  by  an  immediate  and  direct  attack, 
posted  themselves  advantageously  for  that  purpose.     Two  lines 
were  formed,  at  some  distance  from  each,  extending  from  the 
river  across  the  point  to  the  Creek,  with  a  corn-field  to  afford 
them  concealment.     In  the  centre  between  these  lines,  near  a 
road  leading  through  the  field  to  the  fort,  and  in  a  situation 
easily  exposing  them  to  observation,  six  Indians  were  stationed, 
for  the  purpose  of  decoying  within  the  Hnes,  any  force  which 
might  discover,  and  come  out  to  molest  them.  Early  in  the  morn- 
ing of  the  second  [more  correctly,  September  ist],  two  men,  going 
to  a  field  for  horses,  passed  the  first  line,  and  came  near  to  the 
Indians  in  the  centre,  before  they  were  aware  of  danger.     Per- 
ceiving the  six  savages  near  them,  they  endeavored  to  escape 
by  flight.     A  single  shot  brought  one  of  them  to  the  ground: 
the  other  was  permitted  to  escape  that  he  might  give  the  alarm. 
Captain  Mason  (who,  with  Captain  Ogle  and  his  party,  and  a 
few  other  men  had  occupied  the  fort  the    preceding    night) 
hearing  that  there  were  but  six  of  the  enemy,  marched  with 
fourteen  men,  to  the  place  where  they  had  been  seen.     He  had 
not  preceeded  far  from  the  fort,  before  he  came  in  view  of  them; 
and  leading  his  men  briskly  towards  where  they  were,  soon 
found  themselves  enclosed  by  a  body  of  Indians,  who  'till  then 
had  remained  concealed.     Seeing  the  impossibility  of  maintaining 
a  conflict  with  them,  he  endeavored  to  retreat  with  his  men  to 
the  fort;   but  in  vain.     They  were  intercepted  by  the  Indians, 
and    nearly    all    Hterally    cut    to    pieces.   .    .    .    The    shrieks 
of    Captain    Mason's    men,  and    the    discharge    of    the    guns, 
induced  Captain  Ogle  to  advance  with  his  twelve  scouts,  to 
their  relief.     Being  some  distance  in  the  rear  of  his  men,  the 
Indians,  inclosing    round    them,  fortunately  left  him  without 
the  circle,   and  he  concealed  himself.     .    .    .    The  same  fate 
awaited   his   men   which   had   befallen   Captain   Mason's.     Of 
the  twenty-six  who  were  led  out  by  these  two  officers,  only 
three  escaped  death,  and  two  of  these  were  badly  wounded.    .   .    . 


.2 

> 


<u 


o 


i->--  .inity 


The  Ohio  in  the  Revolution  123 

Contrary  to  the  popular  understanding 

the  Indians  made  no  attack  on  the  fort  [writes  the  careful  Dr. 
Thwaites],  at  this  time  being  content  with  their  ambuscade. 
After  throwing  up  some  rude  earthworks  and  bhnds,  scalping 
the  dead  whites,  killing  all  the  livestock  within  reach,  and  set- 
ting fire  to  the  outlying  cabins,  they  retired  across  the  Ohio  in 
the  night  and  dispersed.  Their  loss  was  one  killed  and  nine 
wounded.  .  .  . 

The  second  attack  on  Fort  Henry  occurred  early 
in  September,  1782,  about  two  weeks  after  the  terrible 
battle  of  Blue  Licks  in  Kentucky  which  filled  the 
whole  West  with  sorrow  and  alarm.  A  ranger,  John 
Lynn,  discovered  a  large  Indian  party  moving  across 
what  is  now  Ohio  in  the  direction  of  Wheeling,  but  was 
scarcely  able  to  bring  the  tidings  before  the  savage 
line  had  flung  itself  upon  the  fort  and  outlying  cabins. 
So  swift  was  the  attack  that  only  those  living  in  the 
immediate  vicinity  of  Fort  Henry  were  able  to  gain 
the  walls;  and  only  a  score  of  men  were  about  at  the 
time  to  assume  the  defence  of  the  place.  The  cabin 
of  Colonel  Ebenezer  Zane,  situated  some  forty  yards 
from  the  walls,  contained  a  quantity  of  ammunition 
sent  by  the  Governor  of  Virginia  for  the  defence  of  the 
fort  and  Zane  chose  to  hold  the  enemy  at  bay  from  the 
loopholes  of  this  outpost.  The  redskins  advanced  with 
a  British  flag  waving  over  them  and  their  summons 
to  Colonel  Zane  to  surrender  his  cabin  was  answered 
by  a  burst  of  musketry  which  levelled  the  flag  they 
bore.  Twice  they  attempted  to  storm  the  cabin,  but 
each  time  a  withering  fire  drove  them  back  and  night 
put  an  end  to  the  first  day's  "siege."  In  the  night 
an  attempt  was  made  to  fire  the  cabin,  but  Zane's 


124  The  Ohio  River 

negro  man  Sam  was  on  watch  and  wounded  the  Indian 
carrying  the  torch. 

All  efforts  having  failed,  the  Indians  accidentally 
hit  upon  another  plan  which  adds  a  humorous  tinge 
to  an  otherwise  desperate  story.  A  boat  filled  with 
cannon  balls  en  route  from  Fort  Pitt  to  Com  Island, 
at  Louisville,  put  in  at  dusk  on  the  first  day  of  the 
siege.  The  man  in  charge  was  assailed  by  the  Indians 
but  managed  to  reach  the  fort,  though  his  boat  and 
cargo  fell  into  the  hands  of  his  pursuers.  In  desper- 
ation the  Indians  resolved  to  attempt  to  reduce  the 
fort  by  means  of  the  captured  cannon  balls.  And  on 
the  morrow  the  watchers  saw  through  the  rising  fogs 
a  strange  weapon  trained  upon  them — a  cannon  made 
out  of  the  bole  of  a  hollow  tree,  closely  wrapped  by 
chains  from  a  forge  or  shop  that  stood  on  the  out- 
skirts of  the  village.  The  "cannon"  was  heavily 
loaded  with  powder  and  ball,  and,  when  all  was  ready, 
a  brave  applied  the  match.  After  the  smoke  had 
blown  away  the  explosion  was  found  to  have  killed 
several  Indians  and  a  number  more  were  wounded  by 
the  slivers  that  were  blown  in  every  direction  with 
terrific  force. 

Enraged  now  beyond  all  description  they  attacked 
the  fort  again  and  again,  but  were  successively  driven 
away  until  at  last  the  ammunition  within  the  fort 
began  to  be  exhausted.  It  finally  became  necessary 
to  send  one  of  the  few  defenders  across  the  open  to 
the  Zane  cabin  to  procure  an  additional  supply  of 
powder. 

Among  those  who  volunteered  [writes  Withers]  to  go  on  this 
enterprise,  was  Elizabeth,  the  younger  sister  of  Colonel  Zane. 
She  was  then  young,  active  and  athletic; — with    precipitancy 


The  Ohio  in  the  Revolution  125 

to  dare  danger,  and  fortitude  to  sustain  her  in  the  midst  of  it. 
Disdaining  to  weigh  the  hazard  of  her  own  Hfe,  against  the  risk 
of  that  of  others,  when  told  that  a  man  would  encounter  less 
danger  by  reason  of  his  greater  fieetness,  she  replied,  "And  should 
he  fall  his  loss  would  be  more  severely  felt.  You  have  not  one 
man  to  spare;  a  woman  will  not  be  missed  in  the  defence  of 
the  fort."  Her  services  were  accepted.  Divesting  herself  of 
some  of  her  garments,  as  tending  to  impede  her  progress,  she 
stood  prepared  for  the  hazardous  adventure;  and  when  the 
gate  was  opened,  she  bounded  forth  with  the  buoyancy  of  hope 
and  in  the  confidence  of  success.  Wrapt  in  amazement,  the 
Indians  beheld  her  spring  forward;  and  only  exclaiming  "a 
squaw,  a  squaw, "  no  attempt  was  made  to  interrupt  her  progress. 
Arrived  at  the  door,  she  proclaimed  her  embassy.  Colonel 
Zane  fastened  a  table  cloth  around  her  waist,  and  emptying 
into  it  a  keg  of  powder,  again  she  ventured  forth.  The  Indians 
were  no  longer  passive.  Ball  after  ball  passed  whizzing  and 
innocuous  by.  She  reached  the  gate  and  entered  the  fort  in 
safety.  .  .  .  During  that  night  and  the  next  day,  the  Indians 
still  maintained  the  siege,  and  made  frequent  attempts  to  take 
the  fort  by  storm;  but  they  were  invariably  repulsed  by  the 
deadly  fire  of  the  garrison  and  the  few  brave  men  in  Colonel 
Zane's  house.  On  the  third  night,  despairing  of  success,  they 
resolved  on  raising  the  siege;  and  leaving  one  hundred  chosen 
warriors  to  scour  and  lay  waste  the  country,  the  remainder  of 
their  army  retreated  across  the  Ohio.   .   .   . 

These  two  "sieges"  of  Wheeling  were  the  only- 
instances  of  note  throughout  the  war  in  which  the 
savages  invested  any  of  the  few  forts  upon  the  river. 
Fort  Randolph  did  not  entirely  escape  notice  but  it 
was  never  besieged  closely.  Fort  Mcintosh,  erected 
by  General  Lachlan  Mcintosh  in  the  spring  of  1778  at 
the  mouth  of  Big  Beaver  Creek,  twenty-six  miles  below 
Fort  Pitt,  was  the  first  and  only  fort  built  during  the 
Revolution  on  the  "Indian  side"  of  the  Ohio;  it  was 
never  threatened  by  the  savages. 


nm^mJ 


aiU'o 


The  Ohio  in  the  Revolution  127 

the  last  extremity.  The  voice  sounded  nearer,  this 
time  an  exclamation  of  impatience  and  distress  which 
could  proceed  from  none  but  a  Kentuckian: 

"Whoever  you  are,"  were  the  beseeching  words, 
"for  God's  sake  answer  me."  And  at  the  words  a 
borderer,  shot  through  both  arms,  came  into  sight. 
The  comrades  were  unspeakably  pleased  each  to  find 
the  other,  for  between  them  they  had  a  pair  of  arms 
and  a  pair  of  legs  and  therefore  some  hope  of  life  and 
escape.  As  best  he  could,  Benham  dressed  all  the 
wounds  and  then  proceeded  to  cook  some  food ;  all  that 
could  be  done  with  arms  and  hands  Benham  did, 
cooking,  loading  and  firing  the  gun.  His  comrade, 
having  the  rims  of  a  hat  placed  between  his  teeth  by 
Benham,  waded  into  the  river  and  secured  sufficient 
water  for  their  needs ;  he  also  drove  wild  turkeys  near 
enough  to  Benham  to  allow  him  to  bring  some  down, 
and  then  he  kept  tossing  them  with  the  toe  of  his 
boot  toward  "camp"  until  they  were  within  Benham's 
reach ;  by  the  same  means  he  kept  his  partner  supplied 
with  wood.  When  the  w^ounds  healed  and  the  men 
could  travel  they  camped  at  the  mouth  of  Licking 
River  in  the  hope  of  being  picked  up  by  a  passing  flat- 
boat.  Near  the  last  of  November  a  boat  was  hailed 
and,  though  it  took  some  time  to  prove  they  were  not 
such  savages  as  their  appearance  indicated,  they  were 
taken  aboard  and  carried  to  Louisville. 

In  point  of  numbers  concerned  and  fatalities 
these  actions  which  we  have  described  were  the  most 
important  "battles"  fought  immediately  on  the  Ohio 
River;  and  together  with  the  Battle  of  Point  Pleasant 
in  1774  (which  far  exceeded  them  in  respect  to  num- 
bers and  importance)  comprise  all  the  battles  fought 


128  The  Ohio  River 

in  pioneer  days  within  sight  of  this  great  river.  This 
fact  is  significant,  for  it  shows  how  small  and  how 
scattered  the  settlements  on  the  Ohio  were  during 
the  era  of  the  Indian  wars.  The  engagements  here 
described  are,  however,  typical  of  the  other  conflicts 
fought  away  from  the  river  in  Pennsylvania,  Virginia, 
and  Ohio.  An  hundred  and  one  blockhouses  where 
the  people  of  the  different  neighborhoods  "forted" 
in  times  of  danger  were  invested  as  was  Fort  Henry, 
and  frequently  without  even  the  hasty  warning  brought 
in  that  instance  by  Lynn,  the  scout.  In  times  of 
danger  bodies  of  rangers  and  scouts  patrolled  the  forests 
and  watched  the  trails  of  the  so-called  "pathless 
wilderness"  with  unwearying  caution. 

The  first  attack  on  Wheeling  and  the  surprise  of 
Rogers's  boatmen  are  both  typical  of  the  style  of  Indian 
warfare  with  which  the  pioneers  of  the  Ohio  had  to 
contend  and  which  they  were  very  slow  to  match. 
"War"  in  white  men's  comprehension  meant  a  contest 
of  strength  and  bravery ;  not  so  with  the  red  man.  To 
the  Indian,  war  meant  a  contest  of  cunning  and  de- 
ceit. The  Indians  seldom  if  ever  risked  a  struggle  in  the 
open  on  equal  terms ;  in  a  few  instances  Indians  gave 
battle  from  behind  breastworks  of  trees  and  vines  as 
at  Point  Pleasant  and  Fallen  Timber — ^both  of  which 
they  lost.  The  greatest  battles  won  by  the  red  men 
in  the  West  were  Braddock's  and  St.  Clair's  defeats 
where  cunning  played  a  greater  part  than  strength, 
both  white  armies  being  allowed  to  entrap  themselves 
before  the  Indian  ofltered  battle.  As  in  the  larger, 
so  in  the  minor  conflicts  trickery  was  ever  the  Indian's 
method ;  and  a  large  volume  would  not  contain  a  com- 
plete enumeration   of  all  the  Indian's  arts  to  induce 


McCullough  s  Leap. 


tIBBAPV 


The  Ohio  in  the  Revolution  129 

the  white  invaders  to  attempt  an  unequal  struggle. 

For  this  peculiarly  interesting  mode  of  warfare  the 
savage  had  been  long  in  training  before  ever  a  white 
man  crossed  the  Alleghanies;   the  tricks  played  on  the 
whites  in  the  Ohio  Valley  had  been  played  for  genera- 
tions by  the  warring  Indian  nations  upon  each  other. 
Of  course  the  commonest  sort  of  lure  offered  to  the 
whites  was  the  use  of  a  small  band  of  Indians  as  a  de- 
coy, as  was  successfully  done  both  at  Wheeling  on  the 
occasion  of  the  first  "siege,"  and  at  Rogers's  defeat 
near   Cincinnati,    if   the   Indians   floating   out   of   the 
Little  Miami  be  considered  such,   as  the}'  no  doubt 
were.     Other  decoys  were  employed,  particularly  the 
call  of  the  turkey  and  other  birds  and  animals;   some- 
times trinkets  were  dropped  in  the  trail  with  an  am- 
buscade laid  within  musket  range;  in  the  case  of  the 
terrible  battle  of  Blue  Licks,  it  will  be  remembered,  the 
Indians  left   their  camp  around  Fort  Boonesborough 
with  such  precipitation  that  meat  was  left  on  the  spits 
and  discarded  garments  were  strewn  along  the  route — • 
all  treacherously  planned  decoys  that  cost  Kentucky 
the  bravest  of  her  brave.     In  intertribal  Indian  wars 
it  is  known   that  attacking  braves  have  gone  so  far 
as  to  cut  off  buffalo  hoofs  and  tie  them  to  their  feet  in 
order  to  lure  their  foes  into  the  mouths  of  their  hidden 
guns;    and  one  party  of  Indians,  at  least,  feigned  a 
hasty  retreat,  and  after  making  plain  the  route  they 
pursued,  fastened  a  large  number  of  sharply  pointed 
sticks  in  the  ground  the  tips  of  which  had  been  anointed 
with  poison  from  rattlesnakes'  fangs. 

If  the  captive  of  many  years  among  the  Indians, 
Colonel  James  Smith,  is  to  be  believed,  the  whites 
imderestimated  the  Indian  as  a  warrior. 


130  The  Ohio  River 

I  have  often  heard  [he  wrote]  the  British  officers  call  the  In- 
dians the  undisciplined  savages,  which  is  a  capital  mistake — as 
they  have  all  the  essentials  of  discipline.  They  are  under  good 
command,  and  punctual  in  obeying  orders:  they  can  act  in  concert, 
and  when  the  officers  lay  a  plan  and  give  orders,  they  will  cheer- 
fully unite  in  putting  all  their  orders  into  immediate  execution; 
and  by  each  man  observing  the  motion  or  movement  of  his 
right  hand  companion,  they  can  communicate  the  motion  from 
right  to  left,  and  march  abreast  in  concert,  and  in  scattered 
order,  though  the  line  may  be  more  than  a  mile  long,  and  con- 
tinue, if  occasion  requires,  for  a  considerable  distance,  without 
disorder  or  confusion.  They  can  perform  various  necessary 
manoeuvres,  either  slowly,  or  as  fast  as  they  can  run:  they  can 
form  a  circle,  or  semi-circle.  .  .  .  They  can  also  form  a  large 
hollow  square,  face  out  and  take  trees:  this  they  do,  if  their 
enemies  are  about  surrounding  them,  to  prevent  from  being 
shot  from  either  side  of  the  tree.  .  .  .  They  had  no  aid  [from 
French  or  British]  when  they  fought  even  the  Virginia  rifle-men 
almost  a  whole  day,  at  the  great  Kanawha,  in  the  year  1774; 
and  when  they  found  they  could  not  prevail  against  the  Virgin- 
ians, they  made  a  most  artful  retreat.  Notwithstanding  they  had 
the  Ohio  to  cross,  some  continued  firing,  whilst  others  were 
crossing  the  river;  in  this  manner  they  proceeded  until  they  all 
got  over,  before  the  Virginians  knew  that  they  had  retreated; 
and  in  this  retreat  they  carried  off  all  their  wounded. 

Many  of  the  important  campaigns  of  the  Revolution 
were  in  a  slight  way  connected  with  the  Ohio  River; 
being  the  boundary  line  each  army  of  invasion  crossed 
and  recrossed  it  and  more  than  one  white  army  ren- 
dezvoused upon  its  shores.  There  was  no  method 
and  much  madness  to  the  war  in  the  West;  one  after 
another  the  Indian  raiders  urged  their  horses  across 
the  Ohio  from  the  upper  Muskingum,  the  Scioto,  the 
Miami,  and  the  Sandusky  upon  Virginia  and  Ken- 
tucky, and  soon,  in  retaliation,  a  frenzied  mob  of 
borderers  invaded   Ohio.     It  is  said  that  the  popu- 


The  Ohio  in  the  Revolution  131 

lation  of  Kentuck}^  doubled  each  year  of  the  war 
after  1776,  Boonesborough,  Danville,  Crab  Orchard, 
Lexington,  and  a  score  of  intermediate  "stations" 
receiving  accretions  constantly  by  way  of  the  Ohio 
and  the  "Wilderness  Road"  through  Cumberland  Gap. 
Led  by  the  desperate  renegades,  the  Girty  boys,  the 
Indians  by  their  raids  angered  the  Long  Knives  of 
Virginia  and  Kentucky  to  deeds  that  were  as  despi- 
cable as  they  seem  to  have  been  delightful  to  the  per- 
petrators. Yet  slowl}^  and  surely  the  attacks  of  the 
whites  on  the  Indian  towns  on  the  Muskingum  and 
Scioto  had  their  effect;  when  the  fields  of  Indian  com 
(maize)  were  destroyed  the  Indians  were  driven  to 
desperate  straits  for  provisions  and  slowly  drifted  in 
a  northwesterly  direction  tow^ard  the  British  posts  at 
Sandusky  and  Detroit.  During  the  last  years  of  the 
war  (i 780-1 783)  the  upper  Muskingum,  Scioto,  and 
^liami  w^ere  comparatively  deserted  and  the  Long 
Knives  under  Crawford  and  under  Clark  were  striking 
at  the  northwest  comer  of  what  is  now  Ohio,  where 
the  Indians  were  to  make  their  last  desperate  stand 
for  their  old  hunting-grounds. 

The  one  brilliantly  successful  campaign  of  the  Revo- 
lution in  the  West  was  the  conquest  of  Illinois  by  the  dar- 
ing Virginian  youth  George  Rogers  Clark.  Clark  was  a 
typical  Kentuckian  adventurer  with  blood  and  courage 
honestly  inherited  from  his  ancestors  in  Virginia.  He 
first  appeared,  just  turned  of  age,  on  the  upper  Ohio 
two  years  before  the  outbreak  of  the  Revolution, 
spending  a  winter  on  the  bank  of  the  Ohio  near  the 
Tomlinson  settlement  at  the  present  Moundsville, 
West  Virginia.  In  1774  he  saw  militar^^  life  in  Dun- 
more' s  army  that  marched  into  the  Shawanese  country. 


132  The  Ohio  River 

At  the  beginning  of  the  Revolution  the  pioneers  then 
occupying  the  "County  of  Kentucky"  elected  two 
members  to  the  Virginia  Assembly,  one  being  George 
Rogers  Clark.  The  lad  auspiciously  made  much  of 
his  opportunities;  realizing  that  the  British  posts  in 
Illinois,  Kaskaskia,  and  Vincennes  (Indiana),  were 
responsible  for  much  of  the  success  of  the  Indian 
raids  of  1777  on  the  Kentucky  stations,  he  resolved 
to  get  the  necessary  encouragement  from  Virginia  to 
invade  IlUnois  and  capture  the  two  forts. 

Patrick  Henry,  then  Governor  of  Virginia,  believed 
in  and  agreed  with  the  intrepid  lad.     With  an  order 
on  the  commander  at  Fort  Pitt  for  necessaries  of  the 
daring  expedition,  Clark  came  to  the  head  of  the  Ohio 
early  in  1778,  and  securing  boats  for  his  company  of 
men  set  sail  on  the  river  for  the  Falls  at  Louisville. 
Here  on  Com  Island,  as  we  have  noted,  he  established 
a  little  colony  where  he  trained  and  prepared  for  the 
invasion    to    the    northward.     With    less    than    two 
hundred  hardy  men  he  left  Com  Island  June  24,  1778, 
in  boats  for  the  lower  Ohio.     In  four  days  the  mouth 
of  the  Tennessee  River  was  reached  and  on  an  island 
here  in  the  Ohio  the  little  "army"  encamped.     Just 
below  them  was  the  site  of  an  old  French  fort,  Fort 
Massac,    on   the   present   site   of   Metropolis,    Massac 
County,  Illinois.     The  spot  had  been  a  strategic  one 
on  the  lower  Ohio  because  it  was  the  natural  rendez- 
vous of  Indians,  Indian  traders,  and  Jesuit  mission- 
aries  who   wished   to   pass    from  the   country  north 
of  the  Ohio  up  either  the  Tennessee  or  Ctimberland 
rivers.     From  here   as    well    as  from  Shawneetown, 
just  above,   ran   several   overland  trails   toward   the 
French  settlements,  Kaskaskia  on  the  Kaskaskia  River 


General  George  Rogers  Clark. 


The  Ohio  in  the  Revolution  133 

and  Vincennes  on  the  Wabash.  Another  trail  ran 
from  the  present  Evansville,  Indiana,  still  higher  up 
the  Ohio,  to  Vincennes,  as  well  as  a  trail  from  the  present 
Cincinnati  to  Vincennes.  Clark  passed  all  the  upper 
trails,  and,  acting  probably  on  the  advice  of  spies  sent 
out  previously,  came  down  to  the  lowest,  and  there- 
fore the  shortest,  route  toward  the  British  fort  at 
Kaskaskia.  From  a  canoeful  of  traders  found  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Tennessee  he  secured  guides  to  lead  him 
one  hundred  and  twenty  miles  across  the  prairies  and 
"points"  of  timber  in  Illinois  along  the  Kaskaskia 
Trace. 

Disembarking  in  Massac  Creek  the  daring  adven- 
turer strode  away  at  the  head  of  his  men  to  the  heart 
of  the  enemy's  country;  neither  the  fort  at  Kaskaskia 
nor  Fort  Sackville  at  Vincennes  were  strong  or  strongly 
manned,  but  they  had  worked  already  great  evil  to 
Kentucky  and  threatened  to  do  more.  The  British 
here  under  the  general  command  of  Governor  Ham- 
ilton at  Detroit  had  encouraged  the  Indians  to  ravage 
the  country  south  of  the  Ohio;  along  that  river  they 
had  laid  a  thousand  pitfalls  for  the  advancing  whites, 
and  it  was  plain  that  the  Kentuckians  must  master 
these  Illinois  rendezvous  or  succumb  to  them.  As 
this  little  band  now  left  the  Ohio  the  memory  of  a 
score  of  Indian  outrages  made  them  desperately 
cautious  and  desperately  determined.  One  thing  was 
sure,  or  practically  sure;  could  they  reach  Kaskaskia 
undiscovered  there  was  little  question  that  they  could 
siuprise  and  take  the  town.  So  they  hastened  on- 
ward through  Massac,  Johnson,  Williamson,  Jackson, 
and  Randolph  counties  to  near  Diamond  Cross  where 
the  Kaskaskia  Trace  joined  the  old  Vincennes  Trace 


134  The  Ohio  River 

north  of  Kaskaskia.  On  the  night  of  July  3d  they 
lay  on  St.  Mary's  River  and  on  the  "glorious  fourth" 
came  with  a  rush  on  the  staid  little  town,  frightening 
the  French  habitans  out  of  their  wits  and  taking  Gov- 
ernor Rochblave  prisoner  in  his  own  apartments. 

The  French  of  the  town  expected  to  be  quite  eaten 
alive;  the  British  had  represented  that  the  Americans 
were  every  bit  as  bloodthirsty  as  the  most  ferocious 
savages.  This  lying  policy  had  the  effect  of  a  boom- 
erang; Clark  at  once  took  the  utmost  pains  to  treat 
them  kindly.  Instead  of  finding  the  Virginians  fiends 
the  French  found  them  more  friendly  than  the  English 
had  ever  been,  and,  in  a  short  time,  were  far  from  sorry 
that  they  came.  Clark  was  fortunately  able  to  aug- 
ment this  feeling  tenfold  by  circulating  the  informa- 
tion of  the  friendly  attitude  of  the  French  government 
to  the  struggling  colonies,  it  having  just  then  recog- 
nized the  American  Republic.  Thus  a  feeling  of  favor 
spread  throughout  the  French  settlements  and  finally 
the  French  at  Vincennes,  led  by  a  priest,  Gabault, 
held  out  open  arms  to  Clark  and  his  cause.  In  re- 
sponse Lieutenant  Leonard  Helm  was  sent  to  occupy 
that  important  post.  The  resiilt  is  well  known:  the 
British  com.mander,  Hamilton,  at  Detroit,  made  his 
difficult  way  up  the  Maumee  and  down  the  Wabash, 
recapturing  Vincennes  and  the  American  force  stationed 
there.  The  winter  of  1778-79  came  on  with  Clark  on 
the  Mississippi  and  Hamilton  on  the  Wabash,  each 
preparing  to  oust  the  other  and  both  watchful  and 
determined.  The  winter  rains  and  snows  compelled 
each  to  keep  his  quarters,  but  when  the  spring  floods 
subsided  Hamilton  proposed  to  move  on  Kaskaskia 
and  perhaps  attack  Kentucky  itself. 


UbliAr'.Y 


The  Ohio  in  the  Revolution  i35 

Many  deeds  of  arms  have  been  sung  in  song  and 
told  in  eloquent  prose  which  are  not  found  to  be  based 
on  fact  when  subjected  to  rigid  investigation.  But 
this  is  not  true  of  the  daring,  brilliant  exploit  now  at- 
tempted by  Clark;  the  more  this  is  studied  the  more 
interesting  and  wonderful  does  it  appear.  Estimating 
the  situation  with  great  sagacity  the  Virginian  saw 
that  his  chance  of  victory  hung  on  the  narrow  thread  of 
surprising  Vincennes  before  Hamilton  could  get  ready 
to  surprise  him.  The  February  floods  were  as  high 
as  they  ever  were,  but  there  was  courage  too — and 
never  did  courage  run  higher  in  time  of  war  than  here 
and  now  among  Clark's  men  and  the  excitable  French- 
men, who  were  electrified  at  the  astonishing  plan. 

On  the  7  th  of  February  the  company  of  one  hundred 
and  seventy  men — little  more  than  half  of  Washington's 
force  at  Fort  Necessity— set  out  on  the  perilous  march 
across  IlHnois.  A  galley-batteau,  the  Willing,  had 
been  fitted  out  to  carry  additional  food,  clothing,  and 
ammunition  by  water  to  Vincennes.  The  rivers 
were  running  out  of  banks ;  the  prairies  were  brimming ; 
but  in  fifteen  days  the  American  force,  drenched  and 
desperately  wearied,  flung  themselves  at  Fort  Sack- 
ville  and  captured  Hamilton  and  his  men.  The 
terrible  march  through  the  "Drowned  Lands"  of  the 
Wabash  had  been  indescribably  taxing;  the  troops 
were  ferried  over  the  Wabash  and  marched  for  miles 
through  standing  water.  But  their  leader  had  been 
ever  at  their  head,  making  sport  of  the  fatiguing 
hardships  and  luring  the  men  on  rapidly  to  their  goal. 

There  is  no  minimizing  the  heroism  of  George 
Rogers  Clark's  conquest  of  Illinois  nor  of  the  effects 
of  that  conquest ;  the  Indians  of  the  Wabash  and  Lake 


136  The  Ohio  River 

regions  no  longer  hovered  about  Fort  Sackville  to  be 
urged  upon  Kentucky  by  British  officers.  True,  the 
Kentucky  stations  were  attacked,  and  savagely,  but 
without  avail;  no  British-Indian  army  established  a 
foothold  south  of  the  Ohio  River,  and  the  grasp  Clark 
secured  in  Illinois  never  relaxed.  Virginia  immedi- 
ately took  control  of  the  region  north  of  the  Ohio  and 
retained  it  until  all  but  the  Virginia  MiHtary  Grant, 
in  Ohio,  was  surrendered  to  the  general  government. 


Chapter  VII 
The  Fighting  Virginians 

WHILE  in  the  larger  aspect  the  immediate 
Ohio  shores  saw  comparatively  few  battles, 
in  or  before  the  Revolution,  that  take  rank 
so  far  as  numbers  or  killed  and  wounded 
are  concerned,  yet  it  can  be  said  with  as  much  truth  as 
the  words  usually  contain  that  its  waters  ran  red 
with  blood  throughout  a  score  of  years  of  border  war. 
The  battles  for  the  valley  and  the  battles  which  brought 
about  its  conquest  were  the  niimberless  desperate 
conflicts  between  descending  pioneers  and  the  aborigi- 
nees  on  the  Indian  side.  For  it  was  sure  that  if  Ken- 
tucky and  what  is  now  Pennsylvania  and  West 
Virginia  could  once  be  thickly  populated  by  a  race  of 
hardy  people  the  conquest  of  the  West  was  a  foregone 
conclusion. 

And  so  it  came  about  that  the  flatboat  floating 
down-stream  from  the  Monongahela  country  filled 
with  pioneers,  their  horses  and  cattle,  and  the  imple- 
ments of  husbandry,  was  quite  as  significant  as  if  it 
bore  a  battalion  of  infantry  or  a  consignment  of  small 
arms  and  cannon.  And  while  it  was  a  desperately 
daring  thing  to  set  sail  on  the  upper  Ohio  at  any  time 
during  these  years  of  war,  it  was  also  a  daring  adven- 
ture to  attempt  to  challenge  and  stop  the  pioneers. 

137 


138  The  Ohio  River 

But  there  was  seemingly  no  end  to  the  stream  of 
emigration,  and  any  Indian  party  lying  low  on  the 
dark  shores  of  the  Ohio  were  sure  that  they  would  not 
have  to  wait  long  until  yet  another  boat  would  float 
slowly  into  sight. 

All  the  savage  tricks  ever  perpetrated  on  land  to 
lure  white  men  to  their  fate  were  employed  here  again 
on  the  water,  and  many  never  known  on  land  were 
here  conceived  and  executed.  Desperate  little  bat- 
les  amid-stream,  hard  hand-to-hand  struggles  in  the 
water  where  each  antagonist  sought  to  maim  and 
drown  the  other,  bloody  running  fights  along  the 
drift -strewn  shadowy  shores,  savage  attacks  on  riffles 
where  boats  were  aground,  or  at  the  lower  outer  bank 
at  a  bend  in  the  river  where  boats  floated  toward  the 
shore,  swift  encounters  in  the  night  with  boats  heard 
in  the  dark  but  not  seen,  attacks  at  the  first  gray 
dawn  of  day  (the  Indian's  favorite  time  for  battle)— 
all  these  and  more  are  a  part  of  the  wild  story  of  the 
real  conquest  of  the  Ohio  River, 

Before  attempting  to  describe  some  typical  con- 
flicts of  this  sort  it  is  necessary  first  to  notice  the  river 
craft  of  the  time — ^the  heavy  unwieldy  ''men-of-war," 
in  which  the  "silent  pioneer"  fought  his  lonely  battle. 
The  explorers  and  surveyors  of  the  Ohio  found  the 
great  river  easily  navigated  in  calm  weather  by  the 
light  canoes  of  the  savage.  The  Canoe  Age  of  Ohio 
River  history  began  with  Indian  occupation  of  the 
valley  and  may  be  said  to  have  lasted  until  the  close 
of  the  Revolutionary  War  in  1783;  of  course  canoes 
and  their  modem  substitutes,  skiffs  and  "John-boats," 
still  serve  their  useful  part,  but  at  about  the  year 
mentioned  the  rush  of  emigration  had  been  so  great 


The  Fighting  Virginians  139 

that  the  longest  and  deepest  canoes  could  no  longer 
meet  the  needs  of  an  awakening  empire.  What  the 
packhorse  had  brought  over  the  Alleghenies  the  canoe 
could  transport  to  any  point  on  the  Ohio  or  its  tribu- 
taries ;  but  the  loads  of  the  heavy  Conestoga  freighters 
demanded  longer  and  more  substantial  craft. 

Thus  the  day  of  the  keelboat  and  flatboat  dawned. 
There  were  as  many  styles  and  designs  of  these  his- 
toric vessels  as  himian  ingenuity  and  human  exigency 
could  call  forth.  The  illustrations  here  given  are 
typical  of  the  great  majority.  The  average  keelboat 
was  some  fifty  feet  in  length  by  ten  or  twelve  feet  in 
width;  the  body  of  the  boat  was  boarded  over  and 
would  hold  several  wagon-loads  of  freight.  Along 
the  sides  of  the  boat  were  "running-boards"  along 
which  the  "crew"  walked  while  propelHng  it;  placing 
their  "setting-poles"  at  the  bottom  of  the  stream  or 
on  a  projecting  log  or  rock,  the  men  walked  down  the 
running-boards,  the  poles  braced  against  their  shoulders. 
Thus  the  keelboat  was  the  first  craft  after  the  canoe 
which  was  made  to  ascend  rapid  streams;  anything 
from  a  raft  to  a  houseboat  would  float  down,  but  not 
one  craft  in  a  thousand  that  went  down  the  Ohio 
ever  came  back  again.  The  "setting-pole"  method  of 
propelling  a  boat  was  of  course  useless  in  deep  water ; 
but  it  was  so  successful  in  general  that  that  first  of 
ingenious  men  to  attempt  to  build  a  boat  that  could 
be  run  by  mechanism,  James  Rumsey,  experimented 
with  and  perfected  a  boat  that  would,  hterally,  "walk 
in  the  water"  according  to  the  setting-pole  idea. 

The  principal  craft  of  the  pioneer  era,  however, 
was  the  flatboat  or  barge;  the  "broadhorn"  was  a 
common     name     for    it;     if     called    a    "Kentucky 


I40  The  Ohio  River 

broadhom,  "  its  destination  was  along  the  Ohio  River; 
if  called  a"  New  Orleans  broadhom, "  the  destination 
was  known  to  be  on  the  Mississippi  River,  and  the 
craft  was  (supposedly)  a  little  heavier  and  more 
strongly  put  together.  As  a  house  may  be  anything 
from  a  tottering  shack  to  a  millionaire's  mansion,  so 
the  fiatboat  or  barge  may  have  been  anything  from 
a  creaking  raft  with  a  drygoods  box  on  it  to  a  strong, 
roomy  house  with  a  little  bam  in  the  rear.  The  names 
barge  and  fiatboat  were  used  almost  synonymously, 
but  technically  speaking  a  fiatboat  was  a  raft  with 
a  house  on  it  while  a  barge  was  a  square,  tub -like 
boat  with  a  cabin  in  the  centre;  the  latter  barges  were, 
of  course,  roofed  over.  But  the  two  species  of  boat 
on  the  Ohio  River  which  in  a  few  years'  time  brought 
a  whole  nation  into  the  wilderness  of  the  West  were 
the  raft  with  a  lean-to  or  tent  in  the  centre,  or  the  huge, 
deep,  square  box  called  a  barge.  It  is  with  these 
boats  with  human  freight  that  we  are  now  to  be  imme- 
diately concerned,  for  there  had  to  be  a  people  on 
the  Ohio  before  freight-craft  became  common. 

If  there  was  one  sort  of  fighting  on  the  Ohio  more 
typical  of  the  fiatboat  era  than  another  it  was  an 
encounter  between  whites  on  board  a  boat  and  Indians 
along  the  shore  near  which  the  boat  had  drifted  or 
been  brought  by  means  of  a  decoy.  It  was  rare  that 
Indians  ventured  into  the  river  to  attack  a  boat  on 
even  terms.  All  their  cunning  arts  centred  here — in 
luring  emigrants  to  shore;  and,  having  noted  their 
method  of  war  on  land,  it  is  interesting  to  continue 
the  study  as  it  applies  to  the  river  itself. 

The  most  successful  ruse,  perhaps,  employed  to 
make  boats  on  the  Ohio  put  to  shore  was  by  com- 


The  Fighting  Virginians  141 

pelling  renegades  or  white  captives  to  act  as  decoys; 
these  unfortunate  and  sometimes  treacherous  persons 
among  the  Indians  would  appear  at  the  water's  edge 
and  implore  to  be  saved  by  passing  boats.  John  May, 
in  whose  honor  Maysville,  Kentucky,  was  named,  was 
killed  in  a  battle  which  came  about  through  renegade 
white  decoys.  Embarking  on  a  flat  at  Kelly's  Station 
on  the  Great  Kanawha,  in  company  with  his  clerk 
Johnson  and  a  trader  named  Skiles,  Point  Pleasant 
on  the  Ohio  was  reached  without  incident.  Here 
they  were  joined  by  a  man  named  Flinn  and  two 
sisters  by  the  name  of  Fleming.  At  daylight  on  the 
morning  after  leaving  Point  Pleasant,  Flinn,  who  was 
on  watch,  awakened  the  whole  crew  with  a  cry  of 
alarm.  Far  down  the  river  the  smoke  of  a  large  fire 
could  be  seen  drifting  above  the  trees  and  out  over 
the  water.  Just  as  May  had  decided  upon  which 
shore  the  fire  was  and  was  heading  for  the  opposite 
(Virginia)  side  two  white  men  came  down  to  the 
water's  edge  on  the  "Indian  side"  and  implored  to  be 
taken  aboard;  they  told  when  and  where  they  had 
been  taken  captive,  how  they  effected  their  escape, 
and  added  that  the  Indians  were  hard  on  their  trail. 
The  veteran  May  remained  unmoved  at  the  story  and 
when  he  asked  the  reason  of  the  fire  and  smoke  and 
received  a  reply  from  the  whites  denying  any  know- 
ledge of  a  fire  he  scoffed  at  them.  While  the  parley 
was  taking  place  the  boat  was  kept  amid-stream  in 
the  current  and  the  white  decoys  ran  along  the  shore 
continuing  their  well -feigned  lamentations.  These 
affected  the  Fleming  women  and  also  Flinn,  who  at 
last  proposed  to  May  to  land  and  let  the  whites  aboard. 
The  request  was  refused  but  after  a  time,  through  the 


142  The  Ohio  River 

entreaties  of  the  women  and  Flinn,  May  agreed  to 
run  near  enough  to  shore  to  allow  Flinn  to  wade  ashore 
and  interview  the  two  men.  But  this  was  not  done 
until  the  boat  had  floated  a  mile  beyond  the  decoys 
who,  probably,  were  stopped  by  the  impassable 
nature  of  the  river  bank. 

However,  the  moment  Flinn' s  foot  touched  shore, 
several  Indians,  well-nigh  breathless  from  the  ex- 
hausting run  of  miles  in  the  forest,  stepped  out  and 
seized  him  and  opened  fire  on  the  boat.  Johnson  and 
Skiles  sprang  to  their  guns,  but  May,  knowing  that 
the  current  in  the  middle  of  the  river  was  their 
one  hope  of  escape,  leaped  to  his  oar.  He  called  the 
others  to  leave  the  guns  and  help  him  but  the  rain  of 
bullets  made  it  impossible  to  remain  in  range  and  the 
men  sank  behind  shelter.  The  boat  lay  still  in  the 
backwater,  and  the  Indians,  wary  of  approaching, 
kept  up  a  continuous  fire.  One  of  the  women  received 
a  bullet  in  her  mouth  and  fell  dead;  Skiles  was  shot 
through  both .  shoulders ;  when  at  last  May  arose  and 
swung  his  night-cap  over  his  head  in  sign  of  surrender, 
he  received  a  bullet  fair  in  the  centre  of  his  forehead 
and  fell  dead  in  his  tracks.  Soon  the  Indians  came 
out  to  the  boat  and,  boarding  her,  ostentatiously 
shook  hands  with  the  two  unhurt  voyageurs,  as  well 
as  with  the  writhing  Skiles,  and  coolly  scalped  the 
dead  and  plundered  the  cargo.  The  entire  party, 
savages,  renegades,  and  captives,  spent  the  night  on 

the  beach. 

In  the  morning  plans  were  laid  to  await  more  boats, 

for  with  May's  boat  in  their  possession  they  were 
masters  of  the  situation.  And  sure  enough  three  flat- 
boats  soon  rounded  into  view,  in  charge  of  Captain 


^w 


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s 

o 

o 

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ri 


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'-^'0'. 


The  Fighting  Virginians  i43 

Thomas  Marshall,  of  the  Virginia  Line,  and  son.  In- 
stantly the  pioneers  were  ordered  to  man  the  oars  and 
the  boat  was  headed  for  the  first  of  those  coming 
down-stream.  In  each  of  Marshall's  boats  prepara- 
tions were  made  both  to  withstand  and  escape  the  at- 
tack ;  all  hands  bent  hard  at  the  oars.  Being  in  the  centre 
of  the  current  their  rate  of  speed  was  rapid,  and, 
amid  a  fierce  fusillade,  the  first  and  then  the  second 
boat  got  by  the  Indians'  craft;  Marshall  himself 
commanded  the  last  boat  and  while  the  Indians  at- 
tempted to  cross  the  river  to  it  they  got  out  of  the 
current ;  the  whites  then  made  a  dexterous  manoeuvre 
to  save  the  last  boat.  The  second  allowed  the  third 
to  catch  up  and,  the  passengers  being  transferred,  the 
boat  and  its  freight  was  set  adrift  and  all  hands  bent 
to  the  oars  to  overtake  the  first  boat.  This  being 
overtaken  all  entered  it  and  cast  the  second  boat  and 
cargo  adrift.  Such  now  was  the  number  of  oars  and 
rowers  available  that  the  entire  party  in  a  short  time 
distanced  the  Indian  boat  and  escaped;  in  all  this 
they  were  favored  by  their  coimtrymen  in  May's 
boat  who  purposely  rowed  with  as  uneven  stroke 
as  possible  which  consequently  made  their  progress 
through  the  water  slower  though  to  all  appearances 
they  were  exerting  every  effort  at  their  sad  task. 

This  method  of  using  white  prisoners  as  decoys 
resulted  in  making  all  pioneer  boats  shun  the  whites 
that  hailed  them  from  the  river  shores  as  they 
would  have  shunned  Indians  themselves;  as  a  conse- 
quence many  whites  escaping  from  the  Indians  in  the 
interior  were  pitifully  refused  succor  and  left  to  die. 
Some  succeeded  finally  in  making  known  their  true 
identity.     Colonel  Timoth}'  Downing  was  such  an  one, 


144  The  Ohio  River 

being  captured  near  Blue  Licks  by  Shawanese  while 
returning  from  Lexington.  For  two  days  the  prisoner 
was  marched  into  the  Indian  country  north  of  the 
Ohio  by  an  old  Indian  and  his  son  by  whose  hands  the 
party  that  captured  him  were  sending  him  to  a  certain 
Indian  village.  As  they  encamped  at  the  end  of  the 
second  day  and  the  old  Indian  came  to  tie  Downing 
he  said: 

"Tie  to-night;  after  to-night,  no  more  tie.  " 
"No  tie,"  replied  the  prisoner,  "till  after  supper." 
The  Indian  assented  and  then  directed  Downing 
to  fetch  a  drink  of  water.  As  he  went  Downing  picked 
up  a  tomahawk  and  hid  it  under  his  arm.  As  the  old 
Indian  took  the  water  Downing  brained  him  in  his 
tracks.  The  young  savage  leaped  at  his  back,  but 
was  wounded  and  the  prisoner  made  off.  Reaching 
the  Scioto  River  he  followed  it  to  the  Ohio  and  soon 
a  flatboat  came  by.  In  vain  did  the  poor  fugitive 
plead  to  be  taken  on  board;  the  boat  instantly  put 
for  the  opposite  shore.  In  desperation  Downing  ran 
along  the  shores  for  two  miles  endeavoring  in  every 
way  to  conquer  the  suspicion  of  the  flatboatmen.  At 
last  he  succeeded  so  far  as  to  induce  one  of  the  crew 
to  come  over  to  him  in  a  canoe. 

"If  I  see  an  Indian,"  said  his  savior,  training  his 
gun  on  Downing  all  the  time  as  he  approached  the 
shore,  "I  '11  shoot  you  dead  in  your  tracks.  "  He  saw 
none,  and  the  Colonel  was  taken  aboard  and  saved. 
One  of  the  most  remarkable  river  fights  occurred 
a  little  below  the  mouth  of  the  Great  Kanawha  be- 
tween a  force  of  three  hundred  or  more  Indians  and 
two  boats  under  the  command  of  Captain  William 
Hubbell,   a  Revolutionary  veteran  of  Vermont,   then 


The  Fighting  Virginians  i45 

returning  from  the  East  to  his  newly  erected  home 
in  Kentucky.  A  flatboat  had  been  secured  on  the 
Monongahela  and  Captain  Hubbell  embarked  in  com- 
pany with  Daniel  Light  and  William  Plascut  and  wife 
and  eight  children.  On  the  way  down  the  river  the 
party  was  increased  by  the  addition  of  Messrs.  Stoner, 
Ray,  Tucker,  Kilpatrick  and  two  daughters,  and  an 
Irishman  and  Dutchman  whose  names  were  not 
remembered.  The  story  of  the  fight  is  thus  told  by 
the  Western  Review  of  August,  1819,  plainly  the  ac- 
count of  one  of  the  survivors : 

The  nine  men  were  divided  into  three  watches  for  the  night, 
who  were  alternately  to  continue  awake  and  be  on  the  lookout 
for  two  hours  at  a  time.  The  arms  on  board,  which  consisted 
principally  of  old  muskets  much  out  of  order,  were  collected, 
loaded,  and  put  in  the  best  possible  condition  for  service.  At 
about  sunset  that  day  .  .  .  our  party  overtook  a  fleet  of  six 
boats  descending  the  river  in  company,  and  intended  to  have 
continued  with  them;  but  as  their  passengers  seemed  more 
disposed  to  dancing  than  fighting,  and,  as,  soon  after  dark 
notwithstanding  the  remonstrances  of  Captain  Hubbell,  they 
commenced  fiddling  and  dancing  instead  of  preparing  their 
arms  and  taking  the  necessary  rest ...  it  was  wisely  considered 
more  hazardous  to  be  in  such  company  than  to  be  alone.  .  .  . 
One  of  the  boats  belonging  to  the  fleet  commanded  by  a  Captain 
Greathouse  adopted  the  same  plan,  and  for  a  while  kept  up 
with  Captain  Hubbell  .  .  .  [who]  steadily  proceeded  forward 
alone.  Early  in  the  night  a  canoe  was  dimly  seen  floating  down 
the  river  ...  it  was  now  agreed  .  .  .  every  man  should  be 
up  before  the  dawn,  in  order  to  make  as  great  a  show  as  possible 
of  numbers  and  of  strength;  and  that,  whenever  the  action 
should  take  place,  the  women  and  children  should  lie  down 
on  the  cabin  floor  and  be  protected  as  well  as  they  could  by 
the  trunks  and  other  baggage,  which  might  be  placed  around 
them.  .  .  .  Just  as  daylight  began  to  appear  in  the  east, 
and  before  the  men  were  up  and  at  their  posts  agreeably  to 


146  The  Ohio  River 

arrangement,  a  voice  at  some  distance  below  them  in  a  plaintive 
tone  repeatedly  solicited  them  to  come  on  shore,  as  there  were 
some  white  persons  who  wished  to  obtain  a  passage  in  their 
boat.  This  the  captain  very  naturally  and  correctly  concluded 
to  be  an  Indian  artifice,  and  its  only  effect  was  to  rouse  the 
men  and  plac*^  every  one  on  his  guard.  The  voice  of  entreaty 
was  soon  changed  into  the  language  of  indignation  and  insult, 
and  the  sound  of  distant  paddles  announced  the  approach  of 
the  savage  foe.  At  length  three  Indian  canoes  were  seen  through 
the  mists  of  the  morning  rapidly  advancing.  With  the  utmost 
coolness  the  captain  and  his  companions  prepared  to  receive 
them.  The  chairs,  tables,  and  other  incumbrances  were  thrown 
into  the  river,  in  order  to  clear  the  deck  for  action.  Every  man 
took  his  position,  and  was  ordered  not  to  fire  till  the  savages 
had  approached  so  near,  that  (to  use  the  words  of  Captain 
Hubbell),  "the  flash  from  the  guns  might  singe  their  eyebrows" ; 
and  a  special  caution  was  given  that  the  men  should  fire  suc- 
cessively, so  that  there  might  be  no  interval.  On  the  arrival 
of  the  canoes,  they  were  found  to  contain  about  twenty-five 
or  thirty  Indians  each.  As  soon  as  they  approached  within 
the  reach  of  musket  shot,  a  general  fire  was  given  from  one  of 
them,  which  wounded  Mr.  Tucker  through  the  hips  so  severely 
that  his  leg  hung  only  by  the  flesh,  and  shot  Mr.  Light  just 
below  the  ribs.  The  three  canoes  placed  themselves  at  the 
bow,  stern,  and  on  the  right  side  of  the  boat,  so  that  they  had 
an  opportunity  of  raking  in  every  direction.  The  fire  now 
commenced  from  the  boat,  and  had  a  powerful  effect  in  checking 
the  confidence  and  fury  of  the  Indians.  The  captain,  after 
firing  his  own  gun,  took  up  that  of  one  of  the  wounded  men, 
raised  it  to  his  shoulder,  and  was  about  to  discharge  it,  when 
a  ball  came  and  took  away  the  lock;  he  coolly  turned  round, 
seized  a  brand  of  fire  from  the  kettle  which  served  for  a  caboose 
[stove],  and  applying  it  to  the  pan,  discharged  the  piece  with 
effect.  A  very  regular  and  constant  fire  was  now  kept  up  on 
both  sides.  The  captain  was  just  in  the  act  of  raising  his  gun 
for  a  third  time,  when  a  ball  passed  through  his  right  arm,  and 
for  a  moment  disabled  him.  Scarcely  had  he  recovered  from 
the  shock  and  re-acquired  the  use  of  his  hand,  which  had  been 


^ 


-Q 


The    Rifle,  Tomahawk.   Watch,    Pocket   Compass    and   Sun-dial,   IIuntinL;    Knife, 

Powder  Horn,  Pistol,  and  Sword  of  (ieneral  Georc;e  Rogers  Clark,  now 

Owned  by  Colonel  R.  T.  Durrett,  Louisville,  Ky. 


t 


'^>y^'. 


V. 


'C 

•^^ 


The  Fighting  Virginians  147 

suddenly  draivn  up  by  the  wound,  when  he  discovered  the  Indians 
in  one  of  the  canoes  just  about  to  board  the  boat  in  the  bow, 
where  the  horses  were  placed  belonging  to  the  party.  So  near 
had  they  approached,  that  some  of  them  had  actually  seized 
with  their  hands  the  side  of  the  boat.  Severely  wounded  as  he 
was,  he  caught  up  a  pair  of  horseman's  pistols,  and  rushed 
forward  to  repel  the  attempt  at  boarding.  On  his  approach 
the  Indians  fell  back,  and  he  discharged  a  pistol  with  effect  at 
the  foremost  man.  After  firing  the  second  pistol  he  found  him- 
self without  arms,  and  was  compelled  to  retreat;  but  stepping 
back  upon  a  pile  of  small  wood  which  had  been  prepared  for 
burning  in  the  kettle,  the  thought  struck  him  that  it  might  be 
made  use  of  in  repelling  the  foe,  and  he  continued  for  some  time 
to  strike  them  with  it  so  forcibly  and  actively  that  they  were 
unable  to  enter  the  boat,  and  at  length  he  wounded  one  of  them 
so  severely  that  with  a  yell  they  suddenly  gave  way.  All  the 
canoes  instantly  discontinued  the  contest  and  directed  their 
course  to  Captain  Greathouse's  boat,  which  was  then  in  sight. 
Here  a  striking  contrast  was  exhibited  to  the  firmness  and 
intrepidity  which  had  been  displayed.  Instead  of  resisting  the 
attack,  the  people  on  board  of  this  boat  retired  to  the  cabin 
in  dismay.  The  Indians  entered  it  without  opposition,  and  rowed 
it  to  the  shore,  where  they  instantly  killed  the  captain  and  a 
lad  of  about  fourteen  years  of  age.  The  women  they  placed 
in  the  centre  of  their  canoes,  and  manning  them  with  fresh 
hands,  again  pursued  Captain  Hubbell  and  party.  A  melan- 
choly alternative  now  presented  itself  to  these  brave  but  almost 
desponding  men,  either  to  fall  a  prey  to  the  savages  themselves, 
or  to  run  the  risk  of  shooting  the  women,  who  had  been  placed 
in  the  canoes  in  the  hope  of  deriving  protection  from  their 
presence.  But  "self-preservation  is  the  first  law  of  nature," 
and  the  captain  very  justly  remarked,  there  would  not  be  much 
humanity  in  preserving  their  lives  at  such  a  sacrifice,  merely 
that  they  might  become  victims  of  savage  cruelty  at  some 
subsequent  period. 

There  were  now  but  four  men  left  on  board  of  Captain  Hub- 
bell's  boat,  capable  of  defending  it,  and  the  captain  himself  was 
severely  wounded  in  two  places.  The  second  attack,  however,  was 


148  The  Ohio  River 

resisted  with  almost  incredible  firmness  and  vigor.  Whenever 
the  Indians  would  rise  to  fire,  their  opponents  would  commonly 
give  them  the  first  shot,  which  in  almost  every  instance  would 
prove  fatal.  Notwithstanding  the  disparity  of  numbers,  and 
the  exhausted  condition  of  the  defenders  of  the  boat,  the  Indians 
at  length  appeared  to  despair  of  success,  and  the  canoes  suc- 
cessively retired  to  the  shore.  .  .  .  Unfortunately  the  boat 
now  drifted  near  to  the  shore  where  the  Indians  were  collected, 
and  a  large  concourse,  probably  between  four  and  five  hundred, 
were  seen  rushing  down  on  the  bank.  Ray  and  Plascut,  the  only 
men  remaining  unhurt,  were  placed  at  the  oars,  and  as  the  boat 
was  not  more  than  twenty  yards  from  shore,  it  was  deemed 
prudent  for  all  to  lie  down  in  as  safe  a  position  as  possible  and 
attempt  to  push  forward  with  the  utmost  practicable  rapidity. 
While  they  continued  in  this  situation,  nine  balls  were  shot 
into  one  oar,  and  ten  into  the  other,  without  wounding  the 
rowers,  who  were  hidden  from  view  and  protected  by  the  side 
of  the  boat  and  the  blankets  in  its  stem.  During  this  dreadful 
exposure  to  the  fire  of  the  savages,  which  continued  about 
twenty  minutes,  Mr.  Kilpatrick  observed  a  particular  Indian, 
whom  he  thought  a  favorable  mark  for  his  rifle,  and,  notwith- 
standing the  solemn  warning  of  Captain  Hubbell,  rose  to  shoot 
him.  He  immediately  received  a  ball  in  his  mouth,  which 
passed  out  at  the  back  part  of  his  head,  and  was  almost  at  the 
same  moment  shot  through  the  heart.  .  .  .  The  boat  was  now 
providentially  and  suddenly  carried  out  into  the  middle  of  the 
stream,  and  taken  by  the  current  beyond  the  range  of  the 
enemy's  balls.  .  .  .  Thus  ended  this  awful  conflict,  in  which, 
out  of  nine  men,  two  only  escaped  unhurt.  Tucker  and  Kilpat- 
rick were  killed  on  the  spot,  Stoner  was  mortally  wounded, 
and  died  on  his  arrival  at  Limestone  [Maysville,  Kentucky], 
and  all  the  rest,  excepting  Ray  and  Plascut,  were  severely 
wounded.  The  women  and  children  were  all  uninjured,  ex- 
cepting a  little  son  of  Mr.  Plascut,  who,  after  the  battle  was  over, 
came  to  the  captain,  and,  with  great  coolness,  requested  him  to 
take  a  bullet  out  of  his  head.  On  examination,  it  appeared 
that  a  bullet,  which  had  passed  through  the  side  of  the  boat, 
had  penetrated  the  forehead  of  this  Httle  hero,  and  remained 


The  Fighting  Virginians  149 

under  the  skin.  .  .  .  On  examination,  it  was  found  that  the 
sides  of  the  boat  were  Hterally  filled  with  bullets  and  bullet 
holes.  There  was  scarcely  a  space  of  two  feet  square,  in  the 
part  above  water,  which  had  not  either  a  ball  remaining  in  it, 
or  a  hole  through  which  a  ball  had  passed.  Some  persons  who 
had  the  curiosity  to  count  the  number  of  holes  in  the  blankets 
which  were  hung  up  as  curtains  [evidently  in  the  interlude]  in 
the  stern  of  the  boat,  affirmed  that  in  the  space  of  five  feet 
square  there  were  one  hundred  and  twenty-two. 

Certain  points  in  the  Indians'  method  of  conducting 
this  engagement  are  worthy  of  notice:  it  is  clear  that 
they  first  attempted  to  inveigle  the  boats  ashore  in  the 
mists  of  the  morning,  for  once  there  the  conquest 
could  have  ended  only  in  victory  for  them;  v^hat  has 
been  said  concerning  Indians  obeying  orders  and 
acting  in  unison  is  illustrated  by  their  accord  in  all 
leaving  Hubbell's  boat  at  "a  yell"  and  turning  their 
attention  to  the  Greathouse  boat;  their  desperate 
trick  of  attacking  Hubbell  again  in  canoes  carrying 
the  women  taken  from  the  other  boat  was  exceedingly 
clever  though  unsuccessful;  and  when  Hubbell's  boat 
neared  shore  their  firing  at  the  oars  was  not  so  ac- 
cidental as  is  implied  in  the  narrative,  since  it  was 
only  by  means  of  oars  that  the  pioneers  could  get  out 
of  the  backwater  into  the  current  to  safety.  The 
incident  of  Hubbell's  fighting  the  rascals  with  blocks 
of  firewood  is  typical  of  a  large  number  of  similar 
encounters  in  the  borderland  when  guns  had  been 
emptied  or  when  the  antagonists  were  at  close  quarters. 
Were  every  incident  of  border  warfare  known  it  is 
probable  that  almost  every  known  object  that  could 
be  thrown  or  swung  has  been  employed  to  resist  the 
sudden  onslaught  of  the  red  foe  in  the  West.  It  is 
on  record  that  a  Kentucky  boy  gathering  vegetables  in 


150  The  Ohio  River 

his  father's  garden  saved  his  own  hfe  by  almost  braining 
an  Indian  with  a  squash.  On  another  occasion  two 
soldiers  went  out  from  a  fort  at  Louisville  to  gather 
pumpkins.  These  were  put  in  a  sack  which  one  man 
shouldered  as  both  started  in  Indian  file  for  home. 
An  Indian  who  had  been  in  hiding  now  came  slipping 
up  in  the  rear;  fearing  lest  the  discharge  of  his  "trusty 
rifle"  would  alai-m  the  country  the  redskin  laid  the 
weapon  down  and  closed  in  on  the  burdened  soldier 
with  the  tomahawk  poised  overhead.  In  the  nick 
of  time  the  white  man  felt  his  danger  and  with  a  super- 
human effort  threw  his  bag  of  pumpkins  solidly  into 
the  Indian's  face,  almost  breaking  his  neck.  He 
then  took  to  his  heels  and,  escaping  the  Indian's 
confederates,  the  two  safely  regained  the  f6rt — to  tell 
the  rest  of  their  lives  the  stor}^  of  "The  Battle  of  the 
Pumpkins."  Another  pompous  name  for  a  ludi- 
crous encounter  was  "The  Battle  of  the  Boards." 
In  this  instance  a  party  of  Kentucky  rangers  spent 
a  night  in  a  deserted  cabin  in  the  woods,  mounting 
into  the  loft ;  during  the  night  a  band  of  Indians  came 
to  the  same  retreat  but  remained  below.  While  the 
whites  watched  them  prepare  for  the  night  the  rafters 
gave  way,  and  the  Indians,  overwhelmed  by  a  shower 
of  timbers  and  white  men,  decamped  with  frightful 
yells. 

Captain  James  Ward  and  nephew  were  descending 
the  Ohio  "under  circumstances,"  writes  Collins,  the 
Kentucky  historian,  "which  rendered  a  rencounter 
with  the  Indians  peculiarly  to  be  dreaded."  With  a 
crew  of  half  a  dozen  men  they  had  "embarked  in  a 
crazy  boat,  about  forty-five  feet  long  and  eight  feet 
wide,  with  no  other  bulwark  than  a  single  pine  plank, 


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The  Fighting  Virginians  151 

above  each  gunnel. ' '  The  usual  period  of  watchfulness 
being  succeeded  by  the  inevitable  period  of  carelessness, 
several  hundred  Indians  were  suddenly  found  off  the 
bows,  who  at  once  opened  fire.  Ward,  knowing  that, 
as  was  ever  true,  the  only  hope  of  escape  was  by  keeping 
in  the  river's  current,  bent  to  the  oars;  but  his  nephew 
started  for  his  rifle  at  the  sight  of  the  savages,  and 
dropped  dead  with  a  ball  in  his  breast.  The  oar  that 
the  dead  man  had  abandoned  fell  into  the  river, 
seriously  handicapping  the  efforts  of  Ward,  for  the 
boat,  in  answer  to  his  exertions,  tended  only  to  swing 
in  a  circle.  To  his  intense  disgust  the  "  crew  "  suddenly 
failed  him  utterly;  a  captain  who  had  been  telling 
stories  of  his  daring  in  the  Revolutionary  War  was 
lying  on  his  back  in  the  bottom  of  the  boat  murmuring 
"O  Lord!  O  Lord!"  A  Dutchman  who  tipped  the 
scale  at  something  over  three  hundred  pounds  was 
putting  in  his  t>ime  endeavoring  to  get  as  much  of  his 
anatomy  as  possible  behind  the  low  gunwales  and 
studying  what  portion  of  himself  it  were  better  to 
leave  exposed  in  case  he  could  not  perfectly  succeed 
in  hiding;  when  the  rattle  of  the  bullets  came  Collins 
affirms  that  he  lost  patience,  and,  raising  his  head, 
"in  a  tone  of  querulous  remonstrance,  called  out, 
'Oh,  now!  quit  tat  tamned  nonsense,  tere,  will  you!"' 
No  shots  were  fired  from  the  boat  until  the  middle  of 
the  current  was  reached ;  then  Captain  Ward  attempted 
to  get  a  shot,  but  the  stampeding  horses  rocked  the 
frail  craft  too  violently  and  the  gun  was  discarded  for 
the  oar;  for  an  hour  the  Indians  followed  on  shore  but 
with  the  width  of  the  river  once  between  them  the 
chase  was  at  last  given  over. 

As   a   type   of   many   struggles  between   pioneers 


152  The  Ohio  River 

whose  boats  were  either  fastened  or  grounded  on  the 
river  shore,  the  bitter  fight  between  Indians  and  a 
flatboat  in  charge  of  Henry  Crist  and  Solomon  Spears 
in  Salt  River  in  1788  should  also  be  cited.  The  party 
of  whites  numbered  thirteen,  including  one  woman. 
They  left  Louisville  with  their  boat  full  of  salt  kettles 
and  floated  down  the  Ohio,  which  was  high  and  ascended 
Salt  River  on  the  backwater  to  '  *  Mud  Garrison, ' '  a 
sort  of  fortification  near  the  famous  salt  licks  to  which 
the  whites  resorted  in  case  the  Indians  attacked  them 
while  at  work  making  salt.  Sending  scouts  ashore 
when  Salt  River  was  reached  the  boat  moved  slowly 
up-stream.  The  first  day  passed  without  incident; 
about  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning  of  the  following 
day  the  boat  was  headed  for  the  shore  where  breakfast 
was  to  be  cooked,  at  a  point  eight  miles  below  the 
mouth  of  Rolling  Fork.  As  the  boat  grated  on  the 
shore  the  gobbling  of  turkeys  was  heard  in  the  woods 
and  two  of  the  crew  leaped  ashore  with  their  guns, 
though  the  scouts  had  seen  "signs"  of  Indians  and 
though  the  mimicking  of  the  call  of  a  turkey  was  the 
common  decoy  known  to  the  redskins  and  in  which 
they  were  trained  from  childhood  to  become  pro- 
ficient. 

Hardly  were  the  hunters  on  shore  than  a  force  of  a 
hundred  and  twenty  Indians  leaped  forward  to  secure 
them,  their  comrades,  and  the  boat's  cargo.  At  first 
they  attempted  an  assault  in  force  on  the  boat,  which, 
though  fastened  to  a  tree,  yet  lay  afloat  in  deep  water. 
The  crew,  hastening  to  their  guns,  repulsed  the  assault 
with  frightful  effect;  the  Indians  then  retired  to  the 
trees  on  the  bank  and  the  fight  settled  down  into  a 
dogged,  prolonged  struggle  for  the  mastery. 


The  Fighting  Virginians  153 

The  boat  had  a  log  chain  for  cable  [reads  the  account  left 
by  Crist  himself]  and  when  she  was  first  brought  ashore,  the 
chain  was  thrown  around  a  small  tree  that  stood  in  the  water's 
edge,  and  the  hook  run  through  one  of  the  Hnks.  .  .  .  The 
kettles  in  the  boat  had  been  ranked  up  along  the  sides,  leaving 
an  open  gangway  through  the  middle  of  the  boat  from  bow  to 
stem.  Unfortunately,  the  bow  lay  to  shore,  so  that  the  guns  of 
the  Indians  raked  the  whole  length  of  the  gangway,  and  their 
fire  was  constant  and  destructive.  Spears  and  several  others 
of  the  bravest  men  had  already  fallen,  some  killed  and  others 
mortally  wounded.  From  the  commencement  of  the  battle, 
manv  efforts  had  been  made  to  disengage  the  boat  from  the 
shore,  all  of  which  had  failed.  The  hope  was  that,  if  they  could 
once  loose  the  cable,  the  boat  would  drift  out  of  the  reach  of  the 
enemy's  guns;  but  any  attempt  to  do  this  by  land  would  ex- 
pose the  person  to  certain  destruction.  Fossett's  [one  of  the 
hunters,  who  was  wounded  on  shore]  right  arm  was  broken,  and 
he  could  no  longer  handle  his  rifle.  He  got  a  pole  and  placing 
himself  low  down  in  the  bow  of  the  boat,  commenced  punching 
at  the  hook  in  the  chain,  but  the  point  of  the  hook  was  turned 
from  him,  and  all  his  efforts  seemed  only  to  drive  it  further 
into  the  link.  He  at  length  discovered  where  a  small  limb  had 
been  cut  from  the  pole,  and  left  a  knot  about  an  inch  long; 
this  knot,  after  a  number  of  efforts,  he  placed  against  the  point 
of  the  hook,  and,  jerking  the  pole  suddenly  towards  him,  threw 
the  hook  out  of  the  Unk.  The  chain  fell,  and  the  boat  drifted 
slowly  out  from  the  bank;  and  by  means  of  an  oar  worked 
over  head,  the  boat  was  brought  into  the  middle  of  the  river, 
with  her  side  to  the  shore,  which  protected  them  from  the  fire 
of  the  Indians.  The  battle  had  now  lasted  upwards  of  an 
hour.  .  .  .  The  survivors  had  now  time  to  look  round  upon 
the  havoc  that  had  been  made  of  their  httle  band.  Five  of 
their  companions  lay  dead  in  the  gangway — Spears,  Floyd, 
Fossett  and  Boyce  were  wounded — Crepps,  Crist  and  Moore 
remained  unhurt.  It  was  evident  that  Spears'  wound  was 
mortal.  .  .  .  He  urged  the  survivors  to  run  the  boat  to  the 
opposite  side  of  the  river,  and  save  themselves  by  immediate 
flight,  and  leave  him  to  his  fate. 


154  The  Ohio  River 

But  the  boat  slowly  neared  the  southern  shore, 
making  escape  now  hopeless.  The  Indians  gained 
the  south  side  and,  yelling  like  bloodhounds,  ran  down 
towards  the  boat,  which  they  now  looked  upon  as 
their  certain  prey.  Crepps  and  Crist  each  seized  a 
rifle,  and  ascended  the  river  bank.  The  Indians  fell 
back  into  a  ravine  and  only  fired  a  volley  at  them  as 
they  fled.  Crepps  received  a  ball  in  his  left  side  and 
a  bullet  struck  Crist' s  heel,  crushing  the  bones  of  his 
foot;  Moore  escaped  unhurt,  bringing  in  the  tidings 
of  the  defeat.  The  country  was  at  once  roused. 
Crepps  was  found  and  brought  in  but  died  about  the 
time  he  reached  home.  Crist,  unable  to  walk,  crawled 
into  a  thicket,  but  knowing  only  death  would  be  his 
fate  there,  bound  his  moccasins  to  his  knees,  and,  at 
the  rate  of  half  a  mile  an  hour,  started  on  hands  and 
knees  for  Bullitt's  Lick  eight  miles  away.  Since 
the  25th  (it  was  now  the  27th)  he  had  not  tasted 
food.  On  the  night  of  the  28th  he  lay  near 
a  trail  and  called  out  to  a  passing  horseman,  who, 
filled  with  fear,  galloped  away  to  the  settlement  with 
the  news  of  the  voice  in  the  woods.  A  relief  party 
found  the  exhausted  man  before  dawn.  The  woman 
of  the  party  was  carried  to  Canada  and  ransomed  by 
a  trader.  Crist  was  later  a  member  of  the  State 
Legislature  and  a  member  of  Congress  in  1808. 

This  struggle,  occurring  on  a  lesser  tributary  of  the 
Ohio,  brings  out,  by  contrast,  one  of  the  important 
phases  of  the  struggles  upon  that  river;  here  on  Salt 
River  it  was  little  advantage  (though  the  only  hope  of 
escape)  to  get  the  boat  unfastened  and  adrift,  for  the 
river  was  so  narrow  that  the  boat  could  be  covered 
by  Indian  rifles  at  all  times  from  the  shores;   narrow 


The  Fighting  Virginians  155 

rivers,  too,  could  be  easily  swam  or  forded,  as  was  true 
here.  On  the  wide  Ohio,  however,  a  party  of  Indians 
without  any  craft  could  be  easily  avoided  if  the  pioneer's 
boat  was  kept  in  the  current  of  the  river ;  and  the  river 
could  not  be  forded  save  under  exceptional  circum- 
stances at  a  few  points. 

The  hundred  chronicled  and  thousand  unchronicled 
tragedies  of  the  Ohio  River  during  this  period  are  the 
more  revolting  because  in  so  many  instances  they 
involved  entire  families,  the  women  and  children 
as  well  as  the  men.  As  the  preceding  pages  show, 
many  pioneer  women,  home-seeking  on  the  Ohio  with 
brothers,  fathers,  or  husbands,  had  an  opportunity  to 
show  a  meed  of  bravery  worthy  of  an  Elizabeth  Zane 
or  Mary  Ingles.  The  mother  of  one  John  Rowan  of 
Kentucky  was  one  of  these  brave  women  fitted  for  the 
task  of  conquering  a  wilderness  and  then  making  it 
blossom  as  the  rose.  The  story  of  her  quiet,  steady 
daring  on  an  Ohio  flatboat,  as  told  by  her  son,  will  be 
much  in  place  in  this  record  of  inhuman  war.  Inci- 
dentally it  illustrates  the  power  of  a  perfect  silence 
on  savages  who  were  as  superstitious  as  they  were 
bloodthirsty;  as  such,  it  is  unique  in  the  river's  war- 
time annals. 

In  the  latter  part  of  April,  1784,  my  father  with  his  family, 
and  five  other  famiHes,  set  out  from  Louisville,  in  two  fiat- 
bottomed  boats,  for  the  Long  Falls  of  Green  River.  .  .  . 
The  families  were  in  one  boat  and  their  cattle  in  another.  When 
we  had  descended  the  river  Ohio  about  one  hundred  miles,  and 
were  near  the  middle  of  it,  gliding  along  very  securely,  as  we 
thought,  about  ten  o'clock  of  the  night,  we  heard  a  prodigious 
yelling,  by  Indians,  some  two  or  three  miles  below  us,  on  the 
northern  shore.     We  had  floated  but  a  little  distance  farther 


156  The  Ohio  River 

down  the  river,  when  we  saw  a  number  6f  fires  on  that  shore. 
The  yelHng    still  continued,  and    we  concluded   they  had  cap- 
tured  a  boat   which   had  passed  us    about   midday,   and  were 
massacring    their    captives.     Our   two   boats    were   lashed    to- 
gether,   and    the    best    practical    arrangements   made   for  de- 
fending   them.     The    men  were  distributed  by   my  father  to 
the  best  advantage  in  case  of  an  attack;    they  were  seven  in 
number   including    himself.     The    boats    were    neared    to    the 
Kentucky  shore,  with  as  little  noise  from  the  oars  as  possible. 
We  were  afraid  to  approach  too  near  the  Kentucky  shore,  lest 
there  might  be  Indians  on  that  shore  also.     We  had  not  yet 
reached  their  uppermost  fire   (their  fires  were  extended  along 
the  bank  at  intervals  for  half  a  mile  or  more),  and  we  enter- 
tained a  faint  hope  that  we  might  slip  by  unperceived.     But 
they  discovered  us  when  we  had  got  about  midway  of  their 
fires,  and  commanded  us  to  come  to.     We  were  silent,  for  my 
father  had  given  strict  orders  that  no  one  should  utter  any 
sound  but  that  of  his  rifle;  and  not  that  until  the  Indians  should 
come  within  powder-burning  distance.     They  united  in  a  most 
terrific  yell,  and  rushed  to  their  canoes  and  pursued  us.     We 
floated  on  in  silence — not  an  oar  was  pulled.     They  approached 
us  within  less  than   a  hundred  yards,  with   a  seeming   deter- 
mination to  board  us. 

Just  at  this  moment  my  mother  rose  from  her  seat,  collected 
the  axes,  and  placed  one  by  the  side  of  each  man,  where  he  stood 
with  his  gun,  touching  him  on  the  knee  with  the  handle  of  the 
ax,  as  she  leaned  it  up  by  him  against  the  side  of  the  boat,  to 
let  him  know  it  was  there,  and  retired  to  her  seat,  retaining  a 
hatchet  for  herself.  The  Indians  continued  hovering  on  our 
rear,  and  yelling  for  near  three  miles,  when,  awed  by  the  in- 
ferences which  they  drew  from  our  silence,  they  relinquished 
further  pursuit.  None  but  those  who  have  had  a  practical 
acquaintance  with  Indian  warfare,  can  form  a  just  idea  of  the 
terror  which  this  hideous  yeUing  is  calculated  to  inspire.  I 
was  then  about  ten  years  old,  and  shall  never  forget  the  sen- 
sations of  that  night;  nor  can  I  ever  cease  to  admire  the  for- 
titude and  composure  displayed  by  my  mother  on  that  trying 
occasion.  We  were  saved,  I  have  no  doubt,  by  the  judicious 
system  of  conduct  and  defence,  which  my  father  had  prescribed 


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The  Fighting  Virginians  i57 

to  our  little  band.  We  were  seven  men  and  three  boys — ^but 
nine  guns  in  all.  They  were  more  than  a  hundred.  My  mother, 
in  speaking  of  it  afterwards,  in  her  calm  way,  said  we  had  mad^ 
a  providential  escape,  for  which  we  ought  to  feel  grateful. 

Such  were  the  conquerors  of  the  Ohio  Valley;  for 
though  at  the  start  the  pioneers  of  the  lower  Ohio 
Basin  (Kentucky)  came  ver}^  largely  through  the  back 
door,  Cumberland  Gap,  the  vast  majority  of  the  entire 
population  of  the  valley  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth 
century  came  down  the  Ohio  River.  ^ 

The  chief  highway  was  the  Ohio  River  [writes  Mr.  Roosevelt 
in  his  graphic  volumes,  T/i^  Winning  of  the  West];  all  kinds  of 
craft  were  used,  even  bark  canoes  and  pirogues,  or  dugouts; 
but  the  keel-boat,  and  especially  the  flat-bottomed  scow  with 
square  ends,  were  the  ordinary  means  of  conveyance.  They 
were  of  all  sizes.  The  passengers  and  their  live  stock  were  of 
course  huddled  together  so  as  to  take  up  as  little  room  as  possible. 
Sometimes  the  emigrants  built  or  bought  their  own  boat, 
navigated  it  themselves,  and  sold  it  or  broke  it  up  on  reaching 
their  destination.  At  other  times  they  merely  hired  a  passage. 
A  few  of  the  more  enterprising  boat  owners  speedily  introduced 
a  regular  emigrant  service,  making  trips  at  stated  times  from 
Pittsburg  or  perhaps  Limestone,  and  advertising  the  carriage 
capacity  of  their  boats  and  the  times  of  starting.  The  trip 
from  Pittsburg  to  Louisville  took  a  week  or  ten  days;    but  in 

>  The  distinction  made  here  is  important  and  interesting.  Long, 
black,  and  desperate  as  was  the  route  to  Kentucky  by  the  "Wilderness 
Road"  the  majority  of  pioneers  previous  to,  say,  1785  came  that  way. 
This  is  a  telling  comment  on  the  difficult  and  dangerous  character  of  the 
Ohio  River  route.  "During  about  half  a  century,"  writes  James  Lane 
Allen,  "this  depression  [Cumberland  Gap]  was  the  difficult,  exhausting 
entrance-point  through  which  the  State  received  the  largest  part  of  its 
people,  the  furniture  of  their  homes,  and  the  implements  of  their  civiliza- 
tion. .  .  ." — The  Blue  Grass  Region  of  Kentucky,  252.  Perhaps  Mr. 
Allen  overstates  the  length  of  time  during  which  the  Wilderness  Road  was 
the  great  route  to  Kentucky,  as  almost  every  other  writer  has  misrepre- 
sented the  date  of  the  rise  of  the  Ohio  River  to  importance  as  a  pioneer 
route. 


158  The  Ohio  River 

low  water  it  might  last  a  month.  The  number  of  boats  passing 
down  the  Ohio,  laden  with  would-be  settlers  and  their  belongings, 
speedily  became  very  great.  An  eye  witness  stated  that  be- 
tween November  13th  and  December  2 2d,  of  1785,  thirty-nine 
boats,  with  an  average  of  ten  souls  in  each,  went  down  the  Ohio 
to  the  Falls;  and  there  were  others  which  stopped  at  some  of 
the  settlements  farther  up  the  river.  As  time  went  on  the 
number  of  emigrants  who  adopted  this  method  of  travel 
increased;  larger  boats  were  used,  and  the  emigrants  took 
more  property  with  them.  In  the  last  half  of  the  year  1 787  there 
passed  by  Fort  Harmer  [opposite  Marietta,  which  was  founded 
in  the  next  year]  146  boats,  with  3196  souls,  137 1  horses,  165 
wagons,  191  cattle,  245  sheep,  and  24  hogs.  In  the  year  ending 
in  November,  1788,  967  boats,  carrying  18,370  souls,  with  7986 
horses,  2372  cows,  mo  sheep,  and  646  wagons,  went  down  the 
Ohio.  The  inrush  being  so  great,  Kentucky  grew  apace.  In 
1785  the  population  was  estimated  at  from  twenty  to  thirty 
thousand ;  and  the  leading  towns,  Louisville,  Lexington,  Harrods- 
burg,  Boonesboro,  St.  Asaph's,  were  thriving  little  hamlets, 
with  stores  and  horse  grist-mills,  and  no  longer  mere  clusters 
of  stockaded  cabins,  .  .  .  The  population  of  Louisville 
amounted  to  about  300  souls,  of  whom  116  were  fighting  men; 
between  it  and  Lexington  the  whole  country  was  well  settled; 
but  fear  of  the  Indians  kept  settlers  back  from  the  Ohio. 

The  fighting  pioneers  settled  almost  every  available 
"bottom"  on  the  southern  or  Virginia  side  of  the  river, 
though  for  some  years  there  was  a  long  stretch  be- 
tw^een  what  was  loosely  known  as  the  ' '  Monongahela 
country"  and  "Kentucky"  that  contained  no  settle- 
ments of  any  size;  and  Indian  hostilities  warned  pio- 
neers, as  noted,  from  the  immediate  shore  of  the  Ohio 
in  Kentucky.  The  descending  fiatboats  discharged 
their  passengers  and  freight  at  such  entrepots  as  Lime- 
stone (Maysville),  which  was  settled  in  1784  by  Virgin- 
ians, and  Louisville,  from  which  points  well-worn  routes 
led  inward  toward  the  "settlements."     Many  of  the 


The  Fighting  Virginians  159 

rivers  were  also  used  to  reach  the  same  destination. 
As  late  as   1796  the  southern  bank  of  the  Ohio 
between  Wheeling  and  Limestone  was  a  "wilderness." 
A  pioneer  of  that  day  writes  of  it  as  follows: 

We  found  the  country  settled  the  whole  of  the  way  from 
Morgantown  to  Wheeling,  and  a  verry  pleasant  road. 
From  Wheeling  to  Bellville  [West  Virginia,  on  the  Ohio]  it  is  a 
wilderness  for  most  of  the  way  except  the  banks  of  the  river 
this  [Virginia]  side — which  is  one  hundred  miles  we  found  it 
verry  difficult  to  get  victules  to  eat.  I  drove  [cattle]  fifty 
mile  with  one  meal  of  victules  through  the  wilderness  &  only 
a  foot  path  &  that  was  so  blind  that  we  was  pestered  to  keep  it 
we  could  drive  but  a  little  ways  in  a  day.  .  .  .  We  found  some 
inhabitance  along  the  river  but  they  came  on  last  spring  and 
had  no  provisions  only  what  they  brought  with  them.  The 
country  is  as  good  as  it  was  represented  to  be  &  is  seteling 
verry  fast.  ...  if  you  would  give  me  all  your  intrest  to  go  back 
there  [Connecticut]  to  live  again  it  would  be  no  temptation.  .  .  . 
it  is  incredible  to  tell  the  number  of  boats  that  goes  down  this 
river  with  familys  a  man  that  lives  at  Redstone  Old  fort  [Browns- 
ville, Pennsylvania]  .  .  .  says  that  he  saw  last  spring  seventy 
Boats  go  past  in  one  day  with  familys  moveing  down  the  Ohio.  .  .  . 
There  is  now  at  this  place  eighty  inhabitance.  Corn  is  going 
at  2'  pr  bushel  by  the  quantity  2'  6'^  by  the  single  bushel. 
There  has  been  between  two  and  three  thousand  bushels  raised 
in  Bellville  this  season  &  all  the  settlements  along  the  river  [h]as 
raised  corn  in  proportion  but  the  vast  number  of  people  that 
are  moveing  into  this  country  &  depending  upon  buying  makes  it 
scerce  &  much  higher  than  it  would  be.  There  is  three  double 
the  people  that  passes  by  here  then  there  is  by  your  house 
there  is  Packets  that  passes  from  Pittsburg  to  Kentucky  one 
from  Pittsburg  to  Wheeling  90  miles  one  from  that  to  Musking- 
dom  [Marietta]  90  miles  One  from  that  to  Gallipolees  90 
miles  the  french  settlement  opisite  the  big  Canawa  [Kanawha]  & 
from  there  there  is  another  to  Kentucky — of  which  goes  and  re- 
turns every  week  & — loaded  with  passengers  &  they  carry  the 
male  Mammy  offered  me  some  cloath  for  a  Jacket  &  if  you  would 


i6o  The  Ohio  River 

sent  it  ...  it  would  be  verj'-  exceptible  for  cloaths  is  verry 
high  here  Common  flannel  is  6s  per  yard  &  tow  cloth  is  3  s 
9d  the  woolves  are  so  thick  that  sheep  cannot  be  kept  without 
a  shephard  they  often  catch  our  calvs  they  have  got  one  of 
mine  &  one  of  [a  neighbor]  the  latter  they  caught  in  the  field  near 
the  houses  I  have  often  been  awoak  out  of  my  sleep  by  the 
howling  of  the  wolves.  This  is  a  fine  place  for  Eunice  they 
ask  IS  per  yard  for  weaving  tow  cloth.  .  ,  .  Horses  are  very 
high  in  this  country  &  if  you  have  not  sold  mine  I  should  be 
[glad]  if  you  would  try  to  send  him  on.  .  .  .  Land  is  rising 
verry  fast  Mr.  Avory  is  selling  his  lots  at  36  dollars  apeace 
he  has  sold  three  since  he  came  here  at  that  price.   .   .   .1 

Slowly  but  surely  even  this  unoccupied  stretch  of 
river  became  dotted  with  cabins  and  clusters  of  cabins ; 
our  map  showing  the  more  important  towns  on  the 
southern  shore  affords  a  bird's-eye  view  of  the  unfolding 
of  the  dark  wilderness  through  which  Mary  Ingles 
plodded  half  a  century  before.  Yet  the  interesting 
fact  must  be  kept  in  mind  that  the  interior,  averag- 
ing from  twenty  to  an  hundred  miles  back  from  the 
river,  was  settled  earlier  and  was  more  thickly  popu- 
lated than  any  portion  of  the  bloody  border-line— the 
river  itself.  Of  the  settlements  on  the  Ohio  in  Ken- 
tucky that  have  become  thriving  towns  few  date  back 
prior  to  1800  except  Louisville,  IMaysville,  and  Coving- 
ton (first  surveyed  in  1779);  Henderson  was  laid  out 
in  1810,  Owensboro  in  181 7,  Greenup  in  18 18,  and 
Paducah  in  1827.  Smithland,  Vanceburg,  and  Cat- 
lettsburg  were  of  the  next  generation,  though  at  these 
and  other  points  pioneer  clearings  and  cabins  were  in 
evidence  at  a  far  earlier  time.  In  1800  Fort  Massac 
(Metropolis,  Illinois)  "was  the  only  white  settlement 
between  the  mouth  of  the  Wabash  and  the  Mississippi, " 

>  A.  B.  Hulbert,  Historic  Highways  of  America,  xii.,  72-77- 


The  Fighting  Virginians  i6i 

says  Collins;  "a  few  families  resided  near  the  fort 
and  were  dependent  on  it,  and  two  companies  of  the 
U.  S.  army  were  stationed  there." 

But  this  is  touching  the  other  side  of  the  river — 
the  northern  or  "Indian"  side,  which  must  be  treated 
in  another  chapter. 


Chapter  VIII 

Fort  Washington  and  "The  Bloody  Way'* 

NOTHING  could  be  more  singtilar  in  the  his- 
tory of  an  American  river  than  that  its  two 
shores  should  be  settled  neither  at  the  same 
time  nor  by  the  same  stock  of  people.  While 
this  is  true  of  the  Ohio  it  must  not,  of  course,  be  inter- 
preted too  literally,  for  in  blood  New  Englanders  and 
Virginians  were  of  the  same  race,  and  there  was  not 
a  very  great  space  of  intervening  time  between  the 
filling  of  the  southern  and  the  northern  river  banks. 
Howbeit,  in  temperament  and  training  the  people  who 
founded  the  Ohio  Valley  settlements  in  Virginia  and 
Kentucky  were  far  removed  from  those  who  laid  the 
beginnings  in  the  same  valley  in  Ohio,  Indiana,  and 
Illinois.  And,  again,  while  the  southern  shores  were 
being  settled  from  1770  onward,  not  a  single  lasting 
legal  settlement  was  made  on  the  northern  shore 
until  1788;  at  this  time  the  country  south  of  the 
river  contained  over  one  hundred  and  seventy  thous- 
and souls. 

The  reason  for  this  singular  one-sided  development 
is  fully  explained  by  the  fact  that  the  expansion  of 
Virginia  westward  had  extended  to  the  Ohio  River 
while  to  the  northward  New  York  and  Pennsylvania  had 
not  expanded  beyond  their  chartered  limits.     The  Ohio 

162 


Ft.  Washington  and  ''The  Bloody  Way"    163 

River  had  been  made  the  boundary  line  between  the 
white  and  red  races  in  1768  at  the  treaty  of  Fort  Stan- 
wix  and  it  remained  the  nominal  boundary  until  the 
Federal  Government  was  established ;  that  government 
finally  began  purchasing  portions  of  the  "Indian 
side" ;  first  the  old  stamping  grounds  of  the  Delawares 
were  bought;  and,  one  by  one,  the  purchases  embraced 
the  entire  "Old  Northwest,"  which  was  created  before 
it  was  legall}'  secured.  The  United  States  proceeded 
on  the  theory  that  the  land  beyond  the  Ohio  rightfully 
belonged  to  the  Indians ;  and  it  was  acquired  practically 
by  condemnation  suits  piecemeal. 

Throughout  that  decade  and  a  half,  from  1770  to 
1785,  when  the  fighting  Virginians  were  striking  their 
savage  blows  for  the  river's  conquest  and  making  their 
few  hardy  settlements  on  the  southern  side,  there  were 
no  settlements  on  the  "Indian  side."  Fort  Laurens 
had  been  built  far  back  on  the  Muskingum  but  w^as 
quickly  abandoned;  Fort  Mcintosh  was  built  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Beaver  in  Pennsylvania,  but  throughout 
the  Revolution  no  other  forts  were  erected  on  the 
northern  shore. 

Yet  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  of  all  the  thousands 
who  went  home-seeking  down  the  river  after  the  close 
of  the  war  none  stopped  on  the  "Indian  side."  When 
the  Revolutionary  War  was  won  all  the  territory  be- 
tween the  Alleghenies  and  Mississippi  came  into  the 
possession  of  the  United  States.  It  was  natural  enough 
that  the  oncoming  swarm  of  settlers  should  feel  like 
ignoring  the  Indian's  technical  claim  to  ownership  and 
should  land  their  boats  and  clear  their  "claims"  on 
the  fertile  bottoms  of  what  is  now  Ohio  and  Indiana. 

They  did  this.     It  was  not  an  unknown  land  to 


164  The  Ohio  River 

many  of  them  who  crossed  the  Ohio  from  the  Virginia 
side,  for  instance.  Time  on  time  had  they  flung 
themselves  across  the  river  upon  fleeing  parties  of 
redskin  raiders;  hundreds  of  them  had  ranged  the 
forests  under  vigilant  militia  officers  watching  for  the 
safety  of  the  forts  and  settlements  on  the  Virginia  side. 
Thus  all  the  streams  flowing  into  the  Ohio  from  what 
is  now  southeastern  Ohio  were  well  known  to  the  Long 
Knives  before  the  first  squatters  located  on  the  ' '  Indian 
side."  Having  driven  the  Indian  away  it  is  not 
strange  that  these  conquerors  felt  little  temerity  in 
building  cabins  on  the  northern  Ohio  shore.  Of 
course,  sooner  or  later,  they  heard  that  their  settlements 
were  illegal,  because  the  land  had  not  been  purchased 
from  the  Indians.  But  they  did  not  mind  the  rumors, 
and  argued,  in  their  rough  way,  that  if  the  land  did 
not  belong  to  those  who  had  conquered  it  surely  a 
new  law  of  ownership  had  been  created  among  men. 
Since  the  dawn  of  history  the  right  of  conquest  had 
been  acknowledged  in  every  land. 

And  so,  beginning  about  1780  perhaps,  a  fringe 
of  camps  and  cabins  sprang  up  on  the  bottom-lands 
on  the  "Indian  side"  of  the  Ohio.  These  were  the 
first  American  pioneers  to  live  on  Ohio  soil.  They  were 
the  vanguard  of  the  Virginians  who  had  won  the  Old 
Southwest — creeping  indomitably  into  the  Old  North- 
west. It  is  difficult  to  count  accurately  these  in- 
truders but  we  do  know  that  by  1784-85,  when  the 
United  States  authorities  attempted  to  stop  this 
movement,  the  number  of  illegal  settlements  was 
large. 

In  1785  the  United  States  concluded  a  treaty  with 
the    Wyandot,     Delaware,     Chippewa,    and    Ottawa 


Ft.  Washington  and  *'The  Bloody  Way"    165 

Indians  who  dwelt  between  the  Ohio  River  and  Lake 
Erie,  at  Fort  Mcintosh.  This  treaty  was  conducted 
by  George  Rogers  Clark,  Richard  Butler,  and  Arthur 
Lee.  It  created  a  new  American  boundary  line  in- 
dicated by  the  Cuyahiga  and  Muskingum  rivers  as 
far  south  as  the  old  site  of  Fort  Laurens;  thence  a 
straight  line  running  west  to  the  portage  of  the  Great 
Miami  and  thence  to  the  portage  of  the  Maumee  or 
"Miami  of  the  Lakes."  This  treaty,  signed  January 
21,  1785,  was  the  first  which  gave  the  United  States 
title  to  any  land  northwest  of  the  Ohio  River.  The 
purpose  of  the  government  w^as  to  survey  this  area 
and  sell  the  land  in  order  to  pay  the  Revolutionary 
war  debt. 

It  was  the  commissioners  referred  to  who  first  called 
attention  to  the  settlements  already  made  on  the 
"Indian  side"  of  the  river,  and  on  January  24th 
instructed  Colonel  Harmar,  commanding  at  Fort  Pitt, 
that  "surveying  or  settling  the  lands  not  within  the 
limits  of  any  particular  State  being  forbid  by  the 
United  States,  in  Congress  assembled,  the  commander 
will  employ  such  force  as  he  may  judge  necessary  in 
driving  off  persons  attempting  to  settle  on  the  lands 
of  the  United  States." 

It  was  then  that  Harmar  found  how  many  people 
had  crowded  across  the  Ohio.  On  March  31st,  he 
detailed  Ensign  Armstrong  with  twenty  soldiers  to 
proceed  down  the  river  to  drive  these  intruders  back. 
Armstrong  crossed  the  Little  Beaver  April  ist,  and 
dispossessed  one  family  there;  he  found  others  at 
Yellow  Creek,  Mingo  Bottom,  Norris's  Town,  Haglin's 
or  Mercer's  Town,  and  opposite  Wheeling.  Armstrong's 
report   to    Harmar   was    discouraging.     He   said   the 


i66  The  Ohio  River 

pioneers  "are  moving  to  the  unsettled  countries  by 
forties  and  fifties."  It  was  estimated  that  there  were 
upwards  of  three  hundred  famihes  on  the  Muskingum 
River  farther  down,  as  many  more  on  the  Hockhocking, 
and  "more  than  fifteen  hundred  on  the  rivers  Miami 
and  Scioto."  From  Wheehng  to  the  Scioto,  Arm- 
strong reported  "there  is  scarcely  one  bottom  on  the 
river  but  has  one  or  more  families  living  thereon. " 

Armstrong's  report  is  the  more  interesting  because 
this  was  not  the  first  attempt  to  keep  the  irresistible 
pioneer  advance  from  leaping  the  "River  of  Many 
White  Caps."  As  early  as  1779  Colonel  Brodhead 
had  sent  Captain  Clark  to  Wheeling  with  sixty  men 
to  uproot  settlements  in  Ohio  opposite  that  place. 
Armstrong's  report  shows  that,  in  the  six  years  follow- 
ing Brodhead's  efforts,  a  large  population  had  defied 
the  military  order  as  now  they  were  to  defy  the  civil 
order.  And  not  only  had  they  come,  but  in  their 
rough-and-ready  way  these  first  Ohioans  had  sought  to 
establish  civil  government  among  themselves.  At 
Mercertown,  the  present  Martin's  Ferry,  Ohio,  two  jus- 
tices of  the  peace  had  been  elected,  and  cases  had  been 
tried  by  them.  There  is  evidence  that  this  settlement 
was  never  completely  broken  up^;  if  this  is  the  truth 
it  is  the  oldest  settlement  of  American  pioneers  (other 
than  military  and  mission  promoters)  in  the  State 
of  Ohio.  But,  furthermore,  this  enterprising  vanguard 
had  actually  taken  steps  to  form  a  State.  A  call  for 
delegates  was  issued  March  12,  1785;  they  were  invited 
to  meet  at  four  points,  namely,  on  the  Miami,  Scioto, 
and  Muskingum  rivers  and  at  the  house  of  one  Jonas 

,  >  Charles  A.  Hanna,  Historical  Collections  of  Harrison  County,  Ohio,  51. 


Ft.  Washington  and  "The  Bloody  Way"    167 

Menzons,  for  the  purpose  of  electing  delegates  to  a 
State  convention  to  be  held  at  the  mouth  of  the  Scioto 
River,  March  20th.  ^  The  call  was  signed  by  John 
Emerson.  It  denied  the  right  of  Congress  to  reserve 
land  northwest  of  the  Ohio  River  and  sell  the  same 
to  liquidate  the  public  debt. 

Legally  Emerson  and  his  crew  were  in  the  wrong; 
but  as  the  expression  of  American  spirit  they  were 
tremendously  in  the  right.  Had  not  Congress  settled 
quickly,  and  with  marvellous  wisdom,  the  perplexing 
question  answered  by  the  Ordinance  of  1 787,  it  is  to  be 
doubted  if  a  State  would  not  have  been  founded  north- 
west of  the  Ohio  nearly  as  soon  as  the  State  of  Ken- 
tucky was  ordained  to  the  south — 1792. 

This  slight  survey  of  the  first  attempts  at  home- 
building  on  the  'Tndian  side"  of  the  Ohio  emphasizes 
the  fact  that  the  Virginians  and  Scotch-Irish  of  the 
"Monongahela  country"  were  ready,  at  the  close  of 
the  Revolution,  to  leap  over  the  river  and  conquer  the 
forest- wilderness  of  Ohio  as  they  had,  in  days  gone  by, 
conquered  its  red-skinned  inhabitants  and  driven  them 
away.  But  Congress  had  received  from  the  various 
States  that  claimed  the  Northwest,  cessions  which 
made  it  master  of  almost  this  entire  region;  the  only 
reservations  were  those  by  which  Virginia  retained  a 
large  tract  in  the  Scioto  Valley,  and  by  which  Con- 
necticut retained  what  is  known  as  the  Western  Re- 
serve. Congress  immediately  authorized  the  survey 
of  that  portion  of  the  "Indian  side"  contained  within 
the  limits  piirchased  at  the  treaty  of  Fort  Mcintosh 
in  1785;  and  Fort  Harmar  was  erected  in  that  year 

>  St.  Clair  Papers,  ii.,  5,  note. 


1 68  The  Ohio  River 

on  the  Ohio  at  the  mouth  of  the  Muskingum  River, 
where  troops  might  be  stationed  to  protect  the  sur- 
veyors of  the  Seven  Ranges  (as  the  survey  was  titled), 
and  more  effectually  to  keep  the  Virginians  and  Penn- 
sylvanians  from  continuing  to  cross  the  Ohio. 

In  1787  the  famous  Ordinance  was  passed  by 
Congress  creating  the  "Territory  Northwest  of  the 
River  Ohio."  This  Ordinance  was  made  possible  by 
the  formation  of  the  Ohio  Company  of  Associates,  a 
company  of  Revolutionary  officers  under  the  leadership 
of  General  Rufus  Putnam,  the  fortifier  of  West  Point, 
who  first  gained  fame  for  the  defences  he  constructed 
about  Boston  at  the  outbreak  of  the  war.  On  June 
16,  1783,  two  hundred  and  eighty-five  officers  of  the 
Continental  line  petitioned  Congress  for  a  grant  of 
land  west  of  Pennsylvania  between  Lake  Erie  and  the 
Ohio  River.  "This  petition,"  wrote  Dr.  Hinsdale, 
"was  really  the  foundation  of  the  Ohio  Company  of 
Associates,  organized  at  the  'Bunch  of  Grapes'  in 
Boston,  March  3,  1786."  In  a  marvellous  way  the 
Ohio  Company  was  dependent  on  the  passage  by 
Congress  of  the  famed  Ordinance;  "for,"  Dr.  Hinsdale 
well  asks,  "what  would  homes  be  worth  to  New  Eng- 
land men  without  good  government  ? ' '  The  Ohio  Com- 
pany held  in  its  hands  millions  of  dollars-worth  then 
only  twelve  cents  on  the  dollar!  What  an  opportunity 
this  was  for  a  grateful  government  to  redeem  its  worth- 
less currency  in  good  lands! 

And  yet  Congress  could  not  erect  the  magnificent 
Territory  beyond  the  Ohio  without  assurance  that  it 
would  be  quickly  peopled  by  a  sturdy  race  of  men 
who  would  shortly  be  able  to  defend  themselves  and 
grow  strong.     Thus  it  was  that  the  Ohio  Company 


Rufus  Putnam. 

Redrawn  from  an  old  print. 


*<; 


% 


V 


.-/^- 


Ft.  Washington  and  "The  Bloody  Way"  169 

and  the  Ordinance  of  1787  were  dependent,  and  on 
July  27th,  Dr.  Manasseh  Cutler,  agent  of  the  Ohio  Com- 
pany, succeeded  in  securing  from  Congress  an  agree- 
ment by  which  five  million  acres  lying  immediately 
west  of  the  Seven  Ranges  was  authorized  to  be  sold. 
Of  this  one  and  a  half  millions  went  to  the  Ohio  Com- 
pany and  three  and  one  half  to  what  was  known  as 
the  Scioto  Company  headed  by  Colonel  William  Duer. 
"The  ease  with  which  the  Ohio  Company  carried  its 
proposition  through  Congress,"  wrote  Dr.  Hinsdale, 
"has  been  the  subject  of  surprise  for  a  himdred  years. 
No  doubt  the  explanation  consists  largely  in  the  fact 
that  the  new  colony  was  proposed  by  a  body  of  men 
fully  able  to  make  it  successful." 

Thus,  very  briefly,  the  strange  providence  was 
realized  which  made  a  portion  of  the  '  Indian  side" 
of  the  Ohio  River  the  field  of  exploration  for  New 
Englanders.  Look  at  it  from  any  standpoint  and  the 
fact  must  be  considered  a  miracle — a  miracle  of  in- 
congruity and  of  hope.  For  with  every  other  national 
strain  converging  on  the  great  river  valley — cavalier 
Virginians,  Scotch-Irish  Pennsylvanians,  Moravians, 
Quakers,  and  Dutch — does  it  not  seem  strange  that  New 
England  should  now  opportunely  reach  out  her  hand 
to  have  a  voice  in  the  civilization  of  this  valley  ? 

The  New  Englanders  at  once  began  preparations 
to  emigrate  to  the  shores  of  the  "  River  of  Many  White 
Caps."  The  vanguard  of  about  fifty  officers  and  work- 
men left  for  the  West  in  the  winter  of  1 787-88,  and  after 
a  tedious  journey  over  Forbes' s  Road  through  Penn- 
sylvania reached  the  Youghiogheny  River  in  the  early 
spring.  Here  at  what  is  now  West  Newton,  Pa.,  boats 
were  constructed  for  the  river  trip,  the  flagship  of  the 


I70  The  Ohio  River 

tiny    squadron    being    the    Adventure    Galley,  after- 
wards called   the   Mayflower   in   memory  of    the   his- 
toric   ship    of    the    Pilgrim   fathers.     Descending   the 
Youghiogheny,   Monongahela,   and  Ohio  the  veteran 
hero  General  Putnam  landed  at  Fort  Harmar  at  the 
mouth   of   the   Muskingum   April    7,    1788.     On   the 
opposite  shore  of  the  Muskingum  the  pioneer  town 
in  the  Northwest  Territory  was  founded  by  these  forty- 
eight  founders  of  Ohio.     Fort  Harmar,  erected  partly 
to  prevent  the  Virginian  and  Pennsylvanian  squatters 
from  crossing  the  Ohio,  received  with  equanimity  the 
legal  purchasers  of  the  Ohio  Company's  domain.     At 
once  a  blockhouse  was  erected  by  the  New  Englanders 
and  named  the  "Campus  Martins";  about  it  the  little 
town  began  to  grow  up.     In  the  fall  preceding,  Con- 
gress had  elected  General  Arthur  St.  Clair  governor 
of    the    territory  northwest  of    the    river  Ohio.     In 
July,   1788,  he  arrived,  and  on  the  fifteenth  of  that 
month  the  inauguration  ceremony  was  duly  celebrated. 
The  veterans  of  the  Revolution  on  the  Ohio  gave  the 
name  of  Marietta  to  their  new  town  in  honor  of  Marie 
Antoinette  and  France.     Generals  St.  Clair  of  Penn- 
sylvania, and  Putnam  of  Massachusetts,  Samuel  Holden 
Parsons   of   Connecticut,    and   James   M.  Vamum   of 
Rhode  Island  were  the  leaders  in  the  work  of  establish- 
ing the  settlement,  aided  by  Winthrop  Sargent,  secre- 
tary  of    the    Territory,   and    by   the  noble  Manasseh 
Cutler,  who  was  a  frequent  visitor  and  a  powerful  ad- 
vocate   in    the    East.     Parsons,   Varnum,   and    John 
Cleve    Symmes,    Chief   Justice  of  New   Jersey,   were 
elected  Judges  of  the  Territory. 

But   the   name   of   Judge   Symmes  must   at  once 
call  our  attention  away  from  Marietta  and  the  Musk- 


Ft.  Washington  and  ''The  Bloody  Way"  171 

ingum  to  the  Miami  River,  two  hundred  miles  farther 
down  the  Ohio.  Almost  simultaneous  with  the  Ohio 
Company's  purchase  Judge  Symmes  of  New  Jersey 
applied  to  Congress  for  a  similar  grant  in  the  North- 
west Territory;  accordingly  in  the  same  year,  1787, 
Congress  sold  to  him  what  is  known  as  the  Miami  or 
Symmes  Tract  of  one  million  acres  lying  between  the 
Great  and  Little  Miami  rivers.  In  the  same  year 
that  Marietta  was  founded  three  settlements  were 
made  on  the  Ohio  River  on  the  Miami  Tract,  known 
as  Columbia,  Losantiville,  and  Great  Bend.  The 
second  of  these,  opposite  the  mouth  of  Licking  River 
(L  standing  for  Licking,  os  meaning  mouth,  and  anti 
meaning  opposite),  at  once  began  to  show  signs  of 
rapid  advancement,  and  was  soon  made  the  territorial 
capital;  thither  Governor  St.  Clair  moved,  and  here 
the  territorial  judges  held  court.  The  name  Losanti- 
ville seems  to  have  required  too  much  explanation  and 
was  perhaps  incomprehensible  to  those  unacquainted 
with  the  mysteries  of  the  Latin  language ;  the  name  of 
the  settlement  was  therefore  changed  by  Governor  St. 
Clair  to  Cincinnati,  a  name  borrowed  from  the  famous 
society  of  Revolutionary  officers;  it  had  withal  the 
classic  ring  and  significance  and  at  the  same  time  was 
more  easily  explained  to  the  curious. 

As  we  have  seen  in  former  chapters  the  Indians  of 
the  Old  Northwest  had  been  held  in  check  by  the 
campaigns  of  General  Andrew  Lewis  and  General 
George  Rogers  Clark;  a  number  of  expeditions  from 
Pittsburg  had,  by  the  close  of  the  Revolutionary  War, 
practically  freed  the  Muskingum  River,  and  the  re- 
peated expeditions  from  Kentucky  northward  had 
driven  all  of  the  Ohio  Indians  to  the  head-waters  of 


172  The  Ohio  River 

the  Scioto,  Miami,  and  Wabash  rivers.  During  the 
six  years  succeeding  the  close  of  the  Revolution  the 
tribes  built  their  towns  in  the  swampy  forests  and 
sunny  uplands  of  northwestern  Ohio;  and  though  no 
definite  outbreak  occurred,  hundreds  of  ungovernable 
braves  kept  the  old  war-paths  leading  to  Pennsylvania 
and  Kentucky  worn  deep  into  the  ground.  Great 
Britain,  remembering  the  letter  but  ignoring  the  spirit 
of  the  Treaty  of  Paris,  held  to  her  forts,  principally 
Detroit  and  Niagara  on  the  Lakes;  and,  while  the 
whole  miserable  story  has  never  been  made  clear,  there 
is  no  question  that  her  agents  were  responsible  in  a 
large  measure  for  the  Indian  war  which  now  broke 
out,  threatening  the  existence  of  the  frail  settlements 
made  on  the  'Tndian  side"  of  the  Ohio. 

The  marauds  of  the  Shawanese  and  Miami  Indians 
from  their  rendezvous  at  the  head  of  the  Miami  and 
the  Maumee  rivers  were  felt  severely  in  Kentucky  at 
the  very  time  that  Cincinnati  was  being  founded;  and 
it  seems  as  though  the  new  settlements  had  opened  the 
eyes  of  the  Indian  chieftains  to  the  fact  that  the 
"River  of  Many  White  Caps"  could  never  again  be  a 
boundary  line.  In  1789  General  St.  Clair  invited  all 
northwestern  Indians  to  come  and  treat  with  him  ::t 
Fort  Harmar,  where  the  Wyandots,  Delawares,  and 
other  tribes  made  a  treaty  practically  confirming  the 
Fort  Mcintosh  treaty  of  three  years  previous  which 
gave  the  southeastern  half  of  Ohio  to  the  United  States. 

But  as  a  body  the  congregating  hordes  that  had 
drifted  under  British  influence  near  the  western  ex- 
tremity of  Lake  Erie  were  pleased  to  ignore  and  then 
repudiate  pacts  made  with  the  United  States,  and 
practically  issued  an  ultimatimi  that  the  Ohio  River, 


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Ft.  Washington  and  "The  Bloody  Way"  173 

which  was  made  a  boundary  between  the  red  and 
white  races  by  the  treaty  of  Fort  Stanwix  in  1768  and 
reaffirmed  at  Camp  Charlotte  in  1774*  should  now 
and  forever  be  the  boundary  line;  it  soon  became 
evident  there  was  to  come  a  tremendous  final  struggle 
between  the  young  republic  and  the  aborigines,  who 
were  goaded  by  British  agents  to  hold  that  republic 
to  the  narrowest  possible  limit — "the  Monongahela 
country."  The  few  settlements  on  the  northern 
shores  of  the  Ohio  were  pitifully  weak  and  the  bitter 
cry,  "White  man  shall  not  plant  com  north  of  the 
Ohio,"  heralded  a  final  decision  and  a  desperate  conflict. 
In  the  fall  of  1789  President  Washington  wrote  to 
Governor  St.  Clair  at  Marietta  asking  bluntly  whether 
or  not  * '  the  Wabash  and  her  Indians  are  most  inclined 
for  war  or  peace";  the  Governor's  scout,  Gamelin,  re- 
turned from  the  Wabash  in  April  of  the  following  year 
saying  that  most  of  the  northwestern  Indians  had 
' '  bad  hearts, ' '  and  that  McKee  and  Simeon  Girty  were 
in  full  control  of  the  gathering  legions;  Major  Ham- 
tramck  sent  word  from  Vincennes  in  the  next  month 
saying,  "your  Excellency  can  have  no  great  hopes  of 
bringing  the  Indians  to  a  peace  with  the  United  States." 
The  feeling  in  Kentucky  at  this  time  could  not  have 
been  more  plainly  expressed  than  in  these  words  of 
Judge  Innes  to  the  Secretary  of  War: 

I  will,  sir,  be  candid  on  this  subject  .  .  .  the  people  say 
they  have  long  groaned  under  their  misfortunes,  they  see  no 
prospect  of  relief  .  .  .  they  begin  to  want  faith  in  the  Govern- 
ment, and  appear  determined  to  revenge  themselves:  For  this 
purpose  a  meeting  was  lately  held  in  this  place,  by  a  number  of 
respectable  characters,  to  determine  on  the  propriety  of  carry- 
ing on  three  expeditions  this  fall. 


174  The  Ohio  River 

Accordingly  the  President  called  on  Kentucky 
for  a  thousand  militiamen  and  on  Pennsylvania  for 
five  hundred  for  the  conquest  of  northwestern  Ohio; 
the  troops  were  ordered  to  rendezvous  at  Fort 
Washington. 

It  is  not  our  purpose  here  to  give  an  extended  ac- 
count of  the  four  years'  war  that  was  now  conducted 
with  Fort  Washington  as  the  base  of  supplies.  It  is 
very  interesting  indeed  to  compare  the  three  cam- 
paigns of  this  war  for  the  final  possession  of  the  Ohio 
Valley  with  the  three  campaigns  of  the  Old  French 
War  by  which  England  won  the  Ohio  Valley  from 
France.  In  each  instance  the  first  two  campaigns 
were  failures ;  in  each  instance  the  last  campaigns,  more 
carefully  planned,  more  deliberately  conducted,  were 
complete  successes.  General  Josiah  Harmar  marched 
north  from  Fort  Washington  in  October,  1790,  with  his 
fifteen  hundred  men,  knowing  but  little  more,  if  any, 
concerning  his  destination  than  did  the  young  Colonel 
Washington  when  he  crept  away  from  Will's  Creek 
for  the  Ohio  in  1754.  Two  weeks  later,  after  two 
days  of  ill-concerted  fighting  with  a  small  Indian  army 
on  the  present  site  of  Fort  Wayne,  Indiana,  Harmar 
began  his  retreat  to  the  Ohio,  having  lost  three  hun- 
dred and  ten  out  of  five  hundred  men;  the  Indian 
loss  was  less  than  a  score;  the  effect  of  the  expedi- 
tion on  the  situation  was  much  like  the  effect  of 
Washington's  capitulation  at  Fort  Necessity  in  1754, 
in  that  it  gave  the  British-incited  Indians  a  vain  but 
alluring  hope  of  success.  On  the  other  hand  some 
Indian  captives  were  taken  and  fields  of  maize  were 
destroyed,  and,  what  was  of  far  more  value,  some 
knowledge    was  secured  of  that   strategic    region  in 


Ft.  Washington  and  "The  Bloody  Way"  175 

which  the  scattered  remnants  of  a  score  of  Indian  na- 
tions were  now  converging  for  a  last  struggle  with 
their  white  foe. 

The  second  campaign  in  the  war  was  given  by 
Washington  into  the  hands  of  Governor  Arthur  St. 
Clair,  and  on  March  3,  1791,  Congress  authorized  the 
organization  of  the  second  regiment  of  infantry  and 
gave  to  Washington  the  power  to  enlist  two  thousand 
men  for  six  months;  thus  St.  Clair,  after  garrisoning 
Venango  and  Forts  Harmar,  Washington,  Knox,  and 
Steuben  (built  on  the  present  site  of  Steubenville,  O. 
in  1789)  was  to  march  upon  the  Miami  country. 

The  commander.  Governor  St.  Clair,  whose  record 
in  both  the  Old  French  and  Revolutionary  wars  had 
been  a  noble  one,  was  to  prove  to  be,  indeed,  the 
Braddock  of  the  West.  In  ever  so  many  ways  the 
campaign  of  which  he  was  now  the  moving  power  may 
be  compared  to  the  second  campaign  of  the  Old 
French  War  which  ended  so  disastrously  on  the 
mouldering  banks  of  the  Monongahela.  For  instance, 
recruits  came  very  slowly,  though  St.  Clair's  right- 
hand  officer.  General  Richard  Butler,  labored  in  person 
in  the  effort  to  attend  to  this  department.  In  this 
case  too  there  was  little,  if  any,  more  popular  interest 
in  conquering  the  northwestern  savages  than  there  was 
back  in  '55  when  the  people  of  the  colonies  were  asked 
to  take  up  arms  and  drive  the  French  from  the  Ohio 
Valley.  The  campaign  was  actively  begun  in  the 
spring  of  1791,  and  its  general  object  was  to  establish 
a  line  of  forts  from  Fort  Washington  on  the  Ohio 
River  straight  north  to  what  is  now  Fort  Wa3^ne, 
Indiana,  where  a  strong  fortification  was  to  be  built 
"for  the  purpose  of  awing  and  curbing  the  Indians  in 


176  The  Ohio  River 

that  quarter  and  as  the  only  preventive  of  further 
hostihties."  The  one  end  sought  by  the  government 
was  peace,  and  only  peace.  "This  is  of  more  value," 
were  the  words  of  the  Secretary  of  War  to  General 
St.  Clair,  "than  millions  of  uncultivated  acres."  Thus 
it  may  be  seen  that  the  war  was  not  one  of  con- 
quest but  merely  a  war  of  self-defence  brought  upon 
the  Indians  by  the  actions  of  their  own  irresponsible 
young  men,  and  can  in  no  wise  be  classed  as  a  feature 
of  "a  century  of  dishonor";  indeed  the  government 
went  so  far  in  its  attempt  to  awe  the  Indians  into 
peaceful  measures  as  to  send  two  preliminary  raiding 
parties  northward  from  Kentucky  in  the  hope  that 
the  Indians  would  realize  its  serious  intentions;  but 
these  expeditions  failed  as  would  most  of  their  kind; 
the  squaws  "looked  behind  them  and  turned  pale," 
but  the  warriors  only  revelled  and  sung  around  the 
fires  of  their  boasted  prowess. 

St.  Clair  planned  to  march  from  the  Ohio  on  July 
loth,  but  a  combination  of  delays,  miscalculations,  and 
peculations  held  him  back  week  after  week,  and  on 
September  ist  the  Secretary  of  War  sent  a  stinging 
reprimand  to  General  Butler  and  Quartermaster- 
General  Hodgdon,  who  were  still  at  Pittsburg,  and 
ordered  them  to  set  sail  at  once  for  Fort  Wash- 
ington with  such  men  and  stores  as  were  on  hand, 
and  join  St.  Clair.  Slowly  the  companies  that 
were  to  form  his  army  were  reaching  Fort  Wash- 
ington and  reporting  to  the  commanding  general, 
who  had  been  on  the  ground  since  the  15th  of  May; 
for  four  months  St.  Clair  worked  like  a  galley  slave 
in  the  difficult  hope  of  creating  something  out  of 
nothing — an  army  out  of  crowds  of  hungry,  ill-clothed, 


^jU 


'-'■^-i '. 


^jr- 


General  Arthur  St.  Clair,  Fir^  Governor  of  the  Territory 
Northwest  of  the  River  Ohio. 


Of  TH-, 


Ft.  Washington  and  ''The  Bloody  Way"  177 

armless,  untrained  recruits.  From  being  a  quiet  little 
settlement  of  pioneers  the  infant  Cincinnati  now 
became  a  busy  workshop  where  hundreds  of  men,  fur- 
nished only  with  rude  tools  and  makeshift  parapher- 
nalia, attempted  to  sift  out  an  army  for  a  trying 
campaign  in  the  northern  woods.  The  despair  that 
Braddock  knew  was  felt  as  keenly  by  unfortunate 
St.  Clair;  from  the  men  who  flocked  to  him  he  had 
to  choose  smiths,  harness-makers,  wheelwrights,  and 
carpenters  to  do  the  work  which  ought  to  have  been 
entirely  completed  at  Pittsburg  or  in  the  East;  nearly 
all  the  ammunition  had  to  be  prepared  here,  a  labora- 
tory built,  shells  filled  with  powder,  artillery  cartridges 
loaded,  gun  carriages  made,  and  almost  every  gun 
that  the  militiamen  brought  had  to  be  repaired.  A 
great  deal  of  the  supplies  which  were  received  had 
been  injured  or  were  unfit  for  use;  the  powder  was  of  a 
miserably  inferior  quality,  the  tents  would  not  shed 
rain,  the  axes  bent  instead  of  cut,  forges  which  had 
been  sent  lacked  anvils,  and  the  pack  saddles  were 
"big  enough  for  elephants." 

But  St.  Clair  had  the  indomitable  hopefulness  of  a 
Braddock,  an  equally  vain  belief  in  his  star;  in  one 
way  or  another  the  army  got  on  its  feet,  and,  though  a 
cripple,  it  was  able  to  hobble  away  from  the  Ohio  on 
September  17th.  On  the  7th  of  the  preceding  August 
St.  Clair  had  moved  the  army  six  miles  from  Fort 
Washington  along  what  is  now  Mad  Anthony  Street 
in  Cincinnati,  to  Ludlow's  Station,  now  Cummings- 
ville,  in  order  that  the  troops  might  get  away  from 
the  influence  of  the  dram-shops  that  clung  to  Fort 
Washington  like  barnacles.  The  army,  on  paper,  was 
two  thousand  three  hundred  strong,  and  the  problem 


178  The  Ohio  River 

of  forwarding  provisions  in  sufficient  quantities  was 
to  prove  a  task  of  greater  proportions  than  any  St. 
Clair  had  yet  faced;  in  this  as  in  other  instances  the 
poor  man  was  compelled  to  trust  in  the  judgment  and 
capability  of  others,  and  wherever  he  did  so  it  seems 
that  he  was  doomed  to  disappointment.  Some  of  the 
embittered  letters  that  now  passed  between  him  and 
the  army  contractors  make  one  recall  the  equally  angry 
remonstrances  of  the  deceived  Braddock  when  he 
found  that  the  colonies  in  whom  he  had  been  told  to 
trust  were  absolutely  unmoved.  On  the  8th  of  Octo- 
ber, instead  of  having  ninety  thousand  rations  as  the 
contractors  had  promised,  St.  Clair  wrote  that  he 
should  not  have  an  ounce  forty-eight  hours  later. 

If  you  found  the  transportation  impracticable,  you  ought 
to  have  informed  me,  that  I  might  have  taken  means  to  have 
got  supphes  forwarded,  or  not  have  committed  my  army  to  the 
wilderness.  .  .  .  No  disappointment  should  have  happened 
which  was  in  the  power  of  money  to  prevent ;  and  the  money 
could  certainly  have  prevented  any  here  .  .  .  Want  of  drivers 
will  be  no  excuse  to  a  starving  army  and  a  disappointed  people. 

It  may  be  gathered  from  the  temper  of  this  corre- 
spondence that  it  was  a  desperate  undertaking  to 
send  horses  heavily  loaded  to  the  forests  that  lay  be- 
tween the  Ohio  and  Lake  Erie.  The  delays  occasioned 
by  the  lack  of  stores  held  St.  Clair's  army  back  as 
though  each  man  w^as  dragging  a  cannon ;  passing  Fort 
Hamilton,  which  had  been  built  on  the  site  of  Hamilton, 
Ohio,  between  September  17th  and  October  4th,  and 
was  the  first  in  the  chain  of  forts  that  was  to  connect 
the  Ohio  River  and  Lake  Erie,  the  army  reached  Fort 
Jefferson  on  October  nth  and  built  a  second  fortifica- 
tion near  the  present  Fort  Jefferson,  Ohio.     A  week's 


Ft.  Washington  and  "The  Bloody  Way"  179 

pause  was  made  where  Greenville,  Ohio,  now  stands 
while  the  hungry  army  waited  for  the  necessary  pro- 
visions. Desertions  had  been  common  from  the  very 
beginning  and  now  increased;  on  the  last  day  of 
October  as  many  as  sixty  men  deserted  in  a  crowd 
and  started  back  toward  the  Ohio,  threatening  to  seize 
the  provision  train  that  was  coming  on. 

Lack  of  provisions  was  St.  Clair's  sorest  handicap 
but  it  was  not  all ;  personally  his  duties  had  an  added 
heaviness  because  of  physical  ailment  and  because 
of  a  serious  estrangement  between  him  and  General 
Butler.  Since  being  reprimanded  at  Pittsburg  by 
the  Secretary  of  War  on  account  of  delays  for  which 
he  was  perhaps  not  responsible,  Butler  had  lost  inter- 
est in  his  work  and  lost  confidence  in  his  commander ; 
under  the  circumstances,  writhing  under  what  seemed 
to  him  unjust  criticisms,  it  was  easy  for  him  to  precipi- 
tate a  quarrel  which  began  when  he  led  the  van  of 
the  army  from  Fort  Hamilton  in  a  slightly  different 
formation  from  that  ordered  by  General  St.  Clair. 
For  this  St.  Clair  took  him  to  task,  and,  a  little  later, 
when  Butler  requested  to  be  allowed  to  lead  a  flying 
column  in  advance  of  the  army  for  a  preliminary  at- 
tack upon  the  Indians,  St.  Clair  denied  the  request 
with  what  seemed  to  be  scant  courtesy;  in  this  he 
acted  on  the  supposition  that  men  needed  more  food 
to  run  than  to  walk  and  there  was  not  enough  for 
them  as  it  was;  a  flying  column  under  the  circum- 
stances was  a  patent  absurdity. 

On  the  third  day  of  November  the  army  made  its 
last  day's  march,  camping  that  night  on  the  present 
site  of  Fort  Recovery,  Ohio.  The  day  had  been  cold 
and  the  sickly  St.  Clair  had  been  borne  all  day  on  a 


I  So  The  Ohio  River 

litter.  Just  before  camp  was  pitched  a  broken  wagon 
had  held  the  army  up  for  a  little  while  and  one  of  the 
soldiers  left  record  that  St.  Clair  and  several  officers 
met  around  a  fire  the  wagoners  had  built  and  discussed 
the  present  situation  of  the  army.  "The  General 
observed,"  wrote  this  soldier,  "that  he  Did  not  think 
the  Indians  was  watching  the  motions  of  the  army 
with  a  view  to  attack  them,  other  than  Steal  horses  or 
Catch  a  person  if  they  had  a  Chance."  Never  was  a 
general  more  mistaken.  For  days  and  days  the  out- 
riders of  Little  Turtle  had  been  watching  St.  Clair's 
crippled  army  limp  onward  through  the  woods,  and 
now  he  was  ready  to  close  the  trap  into  which  Brad- 
dock  the  second  had  been  compelled  to  walk. 

A  little  before  dawn  on  the  foiirth  day  of  November 
the  advanced  sentries  posted  on  the  outskirts  of  St. 
Clair's  army  were  driven  in  by  a  rush  of  the  ochred 
cohorts  of  the  allied  Indian  army.  There  were  those 
in  the  army  that  had  expected  this  very  thing,  aye, 
had  been  planning  all  night  for  it.  It 's  a  miserable  story 
when  sifted  to  the  bottom,  for  it  becomes  clear  that 
some  one  through  ignorance  or  over-confidence  or 
jealousy  had  failed  to  do  his  duty:  a  scouting  party 
had  been  sent  out  at  midnight  by  some  of  the  more 
suspicious  officers,  and,  while  lying  beside  the  Indian 
trail  a  mile  or  more  from  camp,  had  distinctly  heard 
the  savages  worming  their  way  through  the  leaves  on 
every  side  upon  the  sleeping  army.  The  leader  of  this 
scouting  party/  Captain  Slough,  came  hurrying  back 
with  his  ominous  report.  From  Colonel  Oldham  he 
went  to  Colonel  Gibson's  tent  and  from  there  to  Gen- 
eral Butler's;  that  officer  heard  the  story  beside  the 
fire  in  front  of  his  tent  where  he  was  warming  his 


Ft.  Washington  and  "The  Bloody  Way"  18 1 

hands;  having  heard  it  he  dismissed  Slough  and  told 
him  to  go  to  sleep.  The  important  message  never 
reached  St.  Clair  and  the  army  did  not  know  of  the 
savages'  presence  or  advance  until  the  rattle  of  their 
muskets  sounded  through  the  floating  fogs. 

The  battle  of  the  Wabash,  as  it  is  known  from  the 
stream  by  which  the  army  lay,  was  fought  very  much 
on  the  order  of  the  other  Braddock's  defeat.  The 
American  army  was  posted  on  a  slight  rising  ground 
with  the  enemy  almost  surrounding  it  on  lower  ground ; 
time  and  again  savage  attacks  were  made  by  small 
bodies  of  militia  and  as  often  the  Indian  army  gave  way 
at  the  point  attacked;  but  the  rally  was  rapid  and  al- 
most complete  and  in  every  case  the  retiring  Ameri- 
cans were  followed  up  and  annoyed.  By  the  middle 
of  the  morning  the  fight  settled  down  into  a  slow 
sullen  combat  in  which  the  Americans  had  almost 
no  more  hope  of  success  than  of  retreating  when 
defeated.  The  officers  were  brave;  General  Butler 
was  soon  mortally  wounded  and  St.  Clair  had  horse 
after  horse  shot  under  him ;  as  the  lesser  officers  disap- 
peared one  by  one  the  rank  and  file  became  more  un- 
manageable, and  when,  at  last,  the  retreat  began  it 
took  on  the  appearance  as  one  eye-witness  states  "of 
the  stampeding  of  a  herd  of  crazed  cattle."  Down 
the  narrow  track  the  survivors  rushed,  throwing  away 
arms  and  even  clothing  in  the  one  hope  of  making  a 
rapid  retreat.  Never  was  greater  disorder  known  on 
Braddock's  Road  than  was  seen  here  on  St.  Clair's 
path ;  in  the  rear  a  few  companies  kept  together  as  a 
rearguard,  and  with  these  came  the  ill-fated  com- 
mander, who  was  almost  the  last  to  leave  the 
battlefield.      But  the  services  of  the  rearguard  were 


1 82  The  Ohio  River 

unnecessary ;  on  the  night  before  the  battle  the  army 
had  numbered  fourteen  hundred  men  and  eighty-six 
officers  and  of  these  eight  hundred  and  ninety-four 
men  and  officers  were  killed  or  wounded;  the  blood- 
thirsty Indians  could  not  get  past  that  thickly  strewed 
battle-ground  and  did  not  therefore  follow  the  army 
Retreat  continued  to  Fort  Jefferson,  Fort  Hamilton, 
and  Fort  Washington  on  the  Ohio.  The  rout  could 
not  have  been  more  complete.  There  now  seemed  to 
be  no  question  but  that  the  Indians  had  made  good 
their  claim  and  that  the  "River  of  Many  White  Caps," 
after  all,  was  to  be  the  boundary  between  the  red  men 
and  the  white. 

The  space  of  time  that  elapsed  between  St.  Clair's  de- 
feat and  the  marching  of  a  new  army  northward  from 
the  Ohio  was  exactly  the  same  as  that  which  elapsed 
between  Braddock's  terrible  defeat  in  the  Old  French 
War  and  the  capture  of  Fort /»<  Duquesne  by  General 
Forbes;  for  three  years,  in  each  case,  the  Indians  who 
had  proved  their  prowess  in  both  battles  were  left  free 
to  throw  their  murderous  raiders  upon  the  long  fron- 
tiers. If  anything,  St.  Clair's  defeat  was  more  disas- 
trous to  the  cause  of  an  advancing  civilization  than 
Braddock's;  the  alliance  now  between  the  Indians  and 
British  was  almost  as  open  and  effective  as  it  was  in 
the  old  days  between  the  Indians  and  French;  the 
scene  of  the  present  war  was  far  removed  from  the  cen- 
tre of  population,  for  not  only  were  the  Alleghenies  to 
be  overcome,  but  the  snag-strewn  Ohio  River  was  to 
be  descended,  and  then  a  longer  march  made  northward 
from  Cincinnati  than  Braddock's  entire  route  from  the 
Potomac  to  Pittsburg ;  but,  as  the  far-seeing  Pitt  found 
a  more  able  man  than  Braddock  or  at  least  a  more 


ii^t 


'^y'^^ 


Ft  Washington  and  "The  Bloody  Way"    1S3 

fortunate  one,  so  Washington  now  picked  from  the 
dozen  or  more  Revolutionary  veterans  a  man  as  able 
as  St.  Clair  and  far  more  fortunate. 

This  man  was  "Mad  Anthony"  Wayne,  well  known 
for  his  daring  and  impetuosity ;  indeed  it  was  these  very 
qualities  which  had  given  him  wide  reputation  that 
made  it  more  difficult  for  the  President  to  place  upon 
his  shoulders  this  important  trust;  for  it  was  feared 
that  what  had  brought  Wayne  success  in  the  more 
formal  campaigns  of  the  Revolution  might  bring  him 
defeat  in  the  informal  sort  of  warfare  that  was  practised 
in  the  western  woods.  In  vain  had  Washington 
warned  St.  Clair  again  and  again  against  a  surprise; 
would  the  advice  be  heeded  any  better  by  this  dashing 
hero  of  West  Point  than  it  was  by  the  sober,  gallant 
Scotchman  ? 

If  haste  had  been  the  watchword  during  the  war 
so  far,  deliberation  was  now  its  substitute,  and  every- 
thing was  undertaken  in  due  season.  In  the  first 
place  efforts  of  various  kinds  were  made  to  bring  about 
a  peaceful  solution  of  the  question  at  stake;  emissaries 
of  peace  were  sent  northward  one  after  another  from 
Cincinnati,  but  very  few  of  them  lived  to  bring  back 
any  report ;  in  fact  word  was  sent  down  from  the  Indian 
country  to  the  effect  that  the  road  thither  was  "Bloody 
Way,"  and  that  all  who  came  over  it  would  find  it  so 
to  their  sorrow.  Both  among  the  Iroquois  of  New  York 
and  the  Wabash  tribes  of  Illinois  the  government, 
through  two  ambassadors,  Samuel  Kirtland  and  Gen- 
eral Rufus  Putnam,  sought  to  establish  communication 
between  the  United  States  Government  and  the  allied 
Indian  tribes  on  the  Maumee,  but  without  effect. 
Thus  the  year  of  1792  wore  away;  a  little  activity  had 


1 84  The  Ohio  River 

been  shown  along  that  bloody  path  and  Fort  St.  Clair, 
near  the  present  Eaton,  Ohio,  had  been  erected  as  a 
half-way  station  between  Fort  Hamilton  and  Fort 
Jefferson;  but  there  was  little  or  no  communication 
between  the  frail  line  of  forts;  "the  President  of  the 
United  States,"  exclaimed  a  Shaw^anese  chief,  "must 
know  well  why  the  blood  is  so  deep  in  our  path  .  .  . 
he  has  sent  messengers  of  peace  on  these  bloody  roads, 
who  fell  on  the  way." 

But  a  messenger  was  now  slowly  starting  for  that 
Indian  lair  who  was  to  bring  peace  on  the  point  of  his 
sword.  Throughout  the  year  1792,  Wayne's  army 
was  gathered  at  Pittsburg  and  in  November  the  army 
was  moved  down  the  Ohio  to  a  point  twenty-two 
miles  below  Pittsburg  and  seven  miles  above  Fort 
Mcintosh,  where  a  permanent  camp,  called  by  the 
name  of  Legionville,  was  established,  "out  of  reach  of 
whiskey,"  as  Wayne  wrote  the  Secretary  of  War. 
Here,  through  the  winter,  this  army  was  drilled  with 
great  severity,  the  incompetent  being  sifted  out  and 
sent  away;  so  when,  in  the  following  April,  Wayne  set 
sail  on  the  Ohio  for  Cincinnati,  it  was  with  a  better 
army  so  far  as  morale  and  discipline  were  concerned 
than  had  ever  appeared  in  the  West. 

Wayne  landed  a  mile  below  Fort  Washington  and 
encamped  on  the  only  piece  of  high  ground  available 
and  called  it  "Hobson's  Choice" ;  the  village  of  Cincin- 
nati came  within  a  few  hundred  yards  of  the  outposts, 
and  from  its  stock  * '  of  ardent  spirit  and  caitiff  wretches 
to  dispose  of  it,"  Wayne  was  as  anxious  to  be  separated 
as  was  the  case  at  Pittsburg. 

By  the  beginning  of  October,  the  army  had  been 
thoroughly   drilled   and   prepared   for   an   exhausting 


Ft.  Washington  and  "The  Bloody  Way"    185 

campaign  and  now  the  word  came  that  all  peaceful 
measures  had  failed  and  that  Wayne  and  his  men 
should  at  once  proceed  up  the  "Bloody  Way."  His 
force  was  twenty-six  hundred  regulars  and  three  hun- 
dred and  sixty  mounted  soldiers.  ".  .  .  You  may 
rest  assured,"  Wayne  wrote  Secretar}^  Knox  upon 
leaving  Fort  Washington,  "that  I  will  not  commit  the 
legion  or  risk  an  engagement  unnecessarily;  and  un- 
less more  powerfully  supported  ...  I  will  content 
myself  by  taking  a  strong  position  advanced  of  Fort 
Jefferson,  and  by  exerting  every  power,  endeavor  to 
protect  the  frontiers ;  and  to  secure  the  posts  and  army 
during  the  winter."  The  winter  was  spent  at  a  new 
fort.  Fort  Greenville,  on  the  present  site  of  Greenville, 
Ohio,  and  the  final  advance  on  the  Indian  lines  was 
not  begun  until  the  last  of  the  following  July.  Build- 
ing Fort  Recovery,  on  the  site  of  St.  Clair's  battle-field, 
during  the  winter.  Fort  Adams  was  erected  on  the  St. 
Mary,  early  in  August,  making  the  seventh  fort  on  the 
line  from  the  Ohio  River.  On  the  8th  of  August,  the 
army  had  hurried  down  the  Anglaize  and  had  begun 
building  Fort  Defiance  on  the  Maumee,  on  the  present 
site  of  Defiance,  Ohio.  Leaving  this  point  on  the  i6th 
of  August,  Wayne  encountered  Little  Turtle's  lines  lying 
under  the  debris  in  a  cyclone's  path,  two  miles  in  length, 
its  left  wing  lying  on  Presqu'  Isle  in  the  Maumee.  In 
vain  was  the  well-chosen  position  to  be  relied  upon;  it 
was  the  first  real  charge  of  those  hard-trained  soldiers 
who  had  learned  something  of  war  at  Legionville  and 
"  Hobson's  Choice  " ;  the  tactics  that  had  defeated  Brad- 
dock  and  St.  Clair  met  their  fate  at  the  hands  of  Wayne ; 
beneath  the  prostrate  trees  and  tangled  wind-rack  his 
soldiers   charged    the   enemy   with    trailed   arms   and 


1 86  The  Ohio  River 

picked  them  out  of  their  hiding-places  with  the  bayonet. 
The  victory  was  complete  and  the  battle  of  Fallen 
Timber  ranks  among  the  decisive  battles  of  America. 
But  it  was  won  at  Legionville  and  "  Hobson's  Choice  " 
— months  before  it  was  ever  fought ;  it  had  been  made 
doubly  sure  by  the  tactics  of  Wayne  as  he  marched  to 
and  fro  building  his  forts  and  hurrying  his  outriders  far 
in  advance.  The  Indian  confederacy  was  utterly  de- 
moralized and  in  the  year  following  signed  a  treaty  at 
Fort  Greenville  which  was  practically  a  reaffirmation 
of  the  two  treaties  of  Fort  Harmar  and  Fort  Mcintosh. 
Fort  Washington,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  was  the 
immediate  base  of  supplies  during  the  three  campaigns 
which  lead  to  the  treaty  of  Greenville,  became  the 
most  important  town  in  Judge  Symmes's  Miami  Pur- 
chase— the  beautiful ' '  Queen  City  of  the  West. ' '     From 

1788  to  1790,  Colonel  Israel  Ludlow  conducted  the 
surveying  for  Judge  Symmes  and  a  small  number  of 
cabins  formed  the  nucleus  of  the  great  city  it  was  to  be. 
A  heavy  growth  of  beech  trees,  many  of  them  of  the 
largest  size,  stood  on  the  bank  of  the  river;  in  order  to 
make  a  parade  ground  at  "Hobson's  Choice,"  General 
Wayne  had  to  cut  down  a  large  number  of  trees  and  dig 
out  the  stiimps.  On  the  second  bottom  the  old  forest 
was  heavy  with  beech,  ash,  black  walnut,  hickory,  and 
red,  white,  and  black  oak  of  vigorous  growth,  including 
some  poplar. 

My  father,  mother  and  seven  children  [Mrs.  Rebecca  Reeder 
has  left  record]  landed  at  Cincinnati  on  the  eighth  of  February, 

1789  ....  There  were  three  little  cabins  here  when  we  landed, 
•where  the  surveyors  and  chain-carriers  lived.  They  had  no 
floors  in  these  cabins.  There  were  three  other  women  here 
besides  my  mother.  .  .  .     Mr.  Ludlow  came  down  to  our  boat 


O  d 


"o    S 

(—■       (1) 

4-)  '*^ 

o  ^ 

(U      W) 

>  T 

•-■    >-. 

(V    a, 
i-^    o 


% 


"'^ 


Ft.  Washington  and  "  The  Bloody  Way  "    187 

and  invited  my  father  and  mother  up  to  stay  in  their  cabin 
until  we  could  get  one  built,  but  my  mother  thought  they  could 
remain  more  comfortably  with  their  small  children  in  their 
boat.  So  we  lived  in  our  boat  until  the  ice  began  to  run,  and 
then  we  were  forced  to  contrive  some  other  way  to  live.  What 
few  men  there  were  here  got  together  and  knocked  our  boats 
up  and  built  us  a  camp.  We  lived  in  our  camp  six  weeks. 
Then  my  father  built  us  a  large  cabin,  which  was  the  first  one 
large  enough  for  a  family  to  live  in.  We  took  the  boards  of 
our  camp  and  made  floors  in  our  house.  Father  intended  to 
have  built  our  house  on  the  comer  of  Walnut  and  Water  streets, 
but  not  knowing  exactly  where  the  streets  were,  he  built  our 
house  right  in  the  middle  of  Water  street.  The  streets  were 
laid  out  but  the  woods  were  so  very  thick,  and  the  streets  were 
not  opened,  so  it  was  impossible  to  tell  where  the  streets  would 
be.  By  May  first  the  population  increased  to  eleven  families 
and  twenty-four  unmarried  men;  the  number  of  log  cabins 
was  now  twenty,  and  nearly  all  of  the  large  trees  had  been  cut 
down  between  Water  Street  and  Broadway,  south  of  Second 
Street,  although  the  logs,  or  many  of  them,  remained  on  the 
ground  for  several  years  afterward. 

The  surveying  of  the  Symmes'  tract  was  completed 
this  month  and  lots  were  disposed  of  during  1789  and 
1790  to  about  two  hundred  and  fifty  people. 

The  number  of  cabins  in  Cincinnati  was  twenty-five, 
in  1 7 19.  Fort  Washington,  which  had  been  begun  in 
June,  1789,  by  Major  Doughty,  stood  on  Third  Street 
between  Broadway  and  Ludlow  streets ;  General  Harmar 
arrived  at  Fort  Washington  on  the  29th  day  of  Decem- 
ber, 1789,  and  three  days  later,  on  the  first  day  of  the 
year,  General  St.  Clair  arrived  on  a  flat-boat  and  was 
escorted  to  the  fort  amidst  an  artillery  salute  of  fourteen 
guns.  On  the  next  day  the  County  of  Hamilton  was 
erected,  and  commissions  for  the  County  Court  of  Com- 
mon Pleas  and  General  Quarter  Sessions  were  granted  by 


1 88  The  Ohio  River 

the  Governor  for  the  County  of  Hamilton.  That  even- 
ing, at  a  banquet  tendered  to  St.  Clair  by  the  military 
and  citizens,  he  formally  changed  the  name  of  the 
settlement  to  Cincinnati. 

The  conditions  that  existed  in  the  little  town  during 
the  Indian  war  were  not  unlike  those  which  war  always 
brings,  but  with  the  signing  of  the  treaty  of  Greenville 
a  rapid  advance  began.  In  1810  there  were  242  frame 
houses  in  the  town  and  fifty-five  log  cabins,  eighty-six 
brick  houses  and  fourteen  of  stone;  there  were  thirty- 
one  looms,  and  230  spinning-wheels;  750  yards  of  wool- 
len cloth  had  been  made  during  the  year,  2967  yards 
of  cotton  cloth,  2098  yards  of  linen  cloth,  685  yards  of 
mixed  cloth.  The  inhabitants  under  ten  years  of  age 
were  387  males  and  365  females;  between  ten  and  six- 
teen, 167  males  and  142  females;  between  sixteen  and 
twenty-six,  286  males  and  241  females;  between  twenty- 
six  and  forty-five,  297  males  and  217  females;  over 
forty-five,  106  males  and  seventy-eight  females;  includ- 
ing eighty  colored  persons,  the  total  population  was 
2340.  The  sale  of  town  lots  always  indicates  the 
rapidity  of  a  city's  growth ;  for  several  years  after  the  be- 
ginning of  the  Cincinnati  settlement  lots  along  the 
main  streets  sold  for  less  than  one  hundred  dollars  but 
gradually  increased  in  price,  until  about  1805  very  high 
figures  were  commanded.  For  a  few  years  then  the 
rate  of  increase  was  slower  until  181 1,  when  lots  on 
Main  Street  from  Front  to  Third  sold  as  high  as  two 
hundred  dollars  per  front  foot;  from  thence  to  Sixth 
Street  at  one  hundred  dollars;  in  Broadway,  Front, 
and  Market  streets,  $280  to  $120. 

The  Cincinnati  historian,  Daniel  Drake,  affirmed 
Cincinnati  was  laid  out  on  the  model    of  Philadelphia. 


4i( 


Ft.  Washington  and  "The  Bloody  Way"    189 

Between  Broadway  and  Western  Row  [he  writes]  there  are 
six  streets,  each  sixty-six  feet  wide,  running  from  the  river 
north  sixteen  degrees,  and  lying  three  hundred  and  ninety-six 
feet  asunder.  These  are  intersected  at  right  angles  by  others 
of  the  same  width,  and  at  the  same  distance  from  each  other; 
except  Water  and  Front  streets,  and  Second  and  Third  streets 
the  former  of  which  are  nearer,  and  the  latter,  on  account  of 
the  brow  of  the  hill,  more  distant.  Not  a  single  alley,  court,  or 
diagonal  street,  and  but  one  common  was  laid  out.  The  blocks 
or  squares  were  each  divided  into  eight  lots,  ninety-nine  by  one 
hundred  and  ninety-eight  feet,  except  those  lying  between 
Second  and  Third  streets,  which  made  ten  lots  each;  and  those 
between  Front  and  Water  streets,  the  size  of  which  may  be 
seen  by  a  reference  to  the  frontispiece.  The  out-lots,  eighty- 
one  in  number,  contain  four  acres  each,  and  lie  chiefly  in  the 
north  of  the  town.  This  plan  was  not  deposited  in  the  public 
archives  for  record  until  the  29th  of  April,  1802.  The  streets 
in  that  part  of  the  town  laid  out  by  John  C.  Symmes  are  but 
sixty  feet  wide.  Those  intersecting  the  river  run  north  forty- 
four  degrees  west,  and  lie  at  the  same  distance  from  each  other 
as  the  streets  in  the  original  town;  but  the  cross  streets  are 
nearer,  and  hence  the  lots  of  this  quarter  are  shorter.  The  plan 
of  this  survey  was  not  recorded  by  the  proprietor  till  the  12th 
of  September,  181 1.  The  reservation  of  the  General  Govern- 
ment was  surveyed  so  as  to  connect  the  plats  just  described.  .  .  . 

The  Donations  by  the  original  proprietors  are,  a  tract  be- 
tween Front  Street  and  the  river,  extending  from  Broadway  to 
Main  Street,  for  a  public  common;  and  a  square  west  of  Main 
Street,  between  Fourth  and  Fifth  streets.  The  south  half  of 
this  was  conveyed  to  the  First  Presbyterian  Congregation;  and 
the  other  to  the  Commissioners  of  the  county;  an  amount  in 
each  case,  nearly  equal  to  the  value  of  the  ground,  being  paid. 

The  eminent  historian  W.  H.  Venable  writes  thus 
of  the  awakening  of  the  great  city  ^ : 

The  Queen  City,  like  many  other  American  cities,  was  farm- 
land before  it  was  houses.     The  ground  on  which  the  business 

'  Cincinnati  and  Hamilton  County,  Ohio,  pp.  61-76. 


190  The  Ohio  River 

part  lies,  and  that  on  the  top  of  the  surrounding  plateaus,  was  as 
rich  as  soil  can  be.  Even  the  side-hills  and  the  abandoned 
quarries  are  fertile,  and  soon  clothe  themselves  with  luxurious 
vegetation.  Almost  every  original  lot-holder  planted  a  garden 
and  an  orchard.  In  1795,  Dr.  Allison,  Surveyor-General  of 
the  Army,  had,  we  are  told,  on  the  east  side  of  the  fort,  a  large 
lot  cultivated  as  a  garden  and  fruitery,  known  as  Peach  Grove. 
Also,  we  read  in  the  old  records,  that  in  1 795-1800,  Hezekiah 
Flint  cultivated,  as  a  cornfield,  the  square  between  Fourth, 
Fifth,  Walnut,  and  Vine  streets.  At  the  same  period,  the  grounds 
where  the  Cincinnati  Hospital  now  stands  were  a  half-cleared 
field  overrun  with  blackberries.  On  the  slope  to  the  river, 
between  Main  and  Walnut,  was  a  small  vineyard,  probably  the 
first  in  the  Ohio  Valley.  There  must  have  been  at  least  a  sug- 
gestion of  apples  on  Walnut  street,  which  was  called  "Cider 
street,"  by  our  not  totally  abstinent  fathers.  We  still  have 
an  Orchard  street,  as  well  as  a  Vine,  a  Plum,  and  a  Cherry 
street. 

The  cluster  of  log  cabins,  into  which  the  forest  oaks,  beeches, 
and  maples  were  turned,  grew  by  aggregation,  and  spread  from 
street  to  street,  square  to  square,  covering  the  fertile  acres. 
The  little  town  opposite  the  mouth  of  the  Licking  lengthened 
up  and  down  the  Ohio  shore,  and  widened  toward  the  hills, 
filling  up  the  space  of  the  bottom  lands.  Then  the  ambitious 
city  began  to  climb  the  terraces,  and  to  take  possession  of  the 
uplands.  The  stimulating  cause  of  this  growth  and  expansion 
was  agriculture.  The  surrounding  country  fed  the  town, 
and  fattened  it.  The  farms  nourished  the  trade-centre,  and 
were,  in  turn,  made  valuable  by  the  reaction  of  commerce. 
"Nothing,"  says  Charles  Cist,  our  best  early  annalist  of  the 
Miami  Country,  "Nothing  could  surpass  the  fertility  of  the 
soil,  which  was  as  mellow  as  an  ash-heap.  Benjamin  Ran- 
dolph planted  an  acre  which  he  had  no  time  to  hoe,  being  obliged 
to  leave  the  settlement  for  New  Jersey.  When  he  returned, 
he  found  one  hundred  bushels  of  corn  ready  for  husking.  " 

By  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  commerce  of  the 
young  city  had  assumed  considerable  magnitude.  From 
February  to  May,   1802,  there  were  exported  from  Cincinnati 


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Ft.  Washington  and  ''The  Bloody  Way"    191 

4,457  barrels  of  flour.  Martin  Baum  (builder  of  the  Sinton 
residence  on  Pike  street)  had  recently  organized  the  "Miami 
Exporting  Company. "  The  day  of  small  things  was  drawing 
to  a  close.  The  Ohio  river  was  to  add  to  her  proud  title,  the 
Beautiful,  the  mercantile  epithet,  Useful.  The  merchants 
began  to  call  the  town  an  "Emporium,"  and  some  spoke  of 
it  as  a  new  Tyre.  The  Ohio  Gazette,  of  Marietta,  was  not  so 
sanguine  in  regard  to  the  growth  of  commerce  and  the  im- 
portance of  river  navigation.  Harman  Blennerhassett  wrote 
for  its  columns  in  1804:  "It  will  forever  remain  impracticable 
for  shipping  to  perform  a  return  voyage  against  the  current 
of  our  great  rivers.  "  But  the  steamboat  was  soon  to  be  invented, 
and  to  that  invention  our  city  owes  the  rapid  development 
of  her  commerce  before  the  time  of  railroads.  Mr.  Carnegie 
has  estimated  that,  in  1884,  the  annual  trade  of  the  Ohio  river 
alone  amounted  to  eight  hundred  million  dollars!  The  river 
brings  annually  to  Cincinnati  two  million  five  hundred  thousand 
tons  of  coal. 

The  early  commerce  of  Cincinnati  depended  mainly  upon 
water  transportation.  The  first  regular  ferry  between  Cincin- 
nati and  Newport  was  established  in  1792.  The  first  regular 
line  of  keel  boats  plied  between  our  city  and  Marietta  in  1794. 
Of  course  Pittsburg,  Gallipolis,  Wheeling,  and  Maysville  were 
sources  of  supply  to  the  young  markets  of  the  Miami  settlements. 
In  due  time,  navigation  extended  not  only  along  the  main 
water  courses — the  Ohio,  the  Missisisippi,  the  Missouri — but 
also  up  the  larger  tributaries  of  these  streams.  The  exporting 
association  of  Cincinnati  established  commercial  relations  with 
Europe,  by  way  of  New  Orleans,  a  city  which  long  held  pre- 
eminence over  all  other  cities  in  the  Mississippi  Valley,  in  popu- 
lation and  trade.  Many  ships  were  built  and  rigged  in  yards 
along  the  Ohio,  and  the  marine  commerce  came  to  be  closely 
associated  with  the  river  business. 

The  situation  and  environment  of  Cincinnati  destined  it  to 
become  a  manufacturing  city.  Every  condition  favors  mechan- 
ical industry,  and  the  practice  of  the  liberal  arts.  The  resources 
of  the  country  around  invited  to  discovery  and  provoked  to 
invention.     The  forest  yielded  best  timber  for  building;    the 


192  The  Ohio  River 

near  quarry  offered  limestone;  the  clay  was  good  material 
for  brick;  the  mine  produced  coal  and  iron.  Raw  material 
from  the  farm  demanded  to  be  metamorphosed  into  food  and 
clothing. 

One  of  the  first  experiments  of  Robinson  Crusoe,  on  his 
solitary  island,  was  the  attempt  to  make  vessels  of  clay.  The 
potter's  wheel  began  to  turn  in  Cincinnati  as  early,  at  least, 
as  the  year  1799,  when  William  McFarland  started  the  manu- 
facture of  earthenware,  thus  inaugurating  an  industry  which 
has  since  made  our  city  distinguished  over  the  world.  Brick 
making  was  not  undertaken  until  1805.  Guns  were  necessary 
to  the  backwoodsman.  The  first  gunsmith  of  Cincinnati  was 
Andrew  Danseth,  who  set  up  his  shop  in  1800.  Cotton  and 
woollen  fabrics  were  woven  by  Cincinnati  looms  before  the 
year  1809. 

Mr.  John  Melish,  an  English  traveller  who  visited  Cincinnati 
in  181 1,  mentions  that  there  were,  at  that  time,  in  the  place, 
cabinetmakers,  coopers,  turners,  machinemakers,  wheelwrights, 
smiths,  coppersmiths,  tinners,  silversmiths,  tanners,  saddlers, 
boot  and  shoe  makers,  glovers,  tailors,  spinners,  weavers,  dyers, 
printers,  book  binders,  rope-makers,  and  bricklayers,  certainly 
a  respectable  array  of  guilds. 

The  manufacturing  of  malt  liquors,  now  conducted  here  on  a 
prodigious  scale,  seems  to  have  originated  in  the  first  decade  of 
the  century.  The  first  Cincinnati  brewery,  the  property  of 
John  Embree,  was  located  on  the  river  bank  at  the  foot  of  Race 
street.  The  annual  product  of  the  establishment,  in  181 1,  was 
five  thousand  barrels  of  beer  and  porter.  A  Cincinnati  brewery 
in  the  World's  Fair  exhibit  at  Chicago,  in  1893,  displayed,  as 
an  advertisement,  a  booth  with  fixtures  and  decorations  cost- 
ing ten  thousand  dollars!  Cincinnati's  annual  product  of  beer 
is  nearly  twenty -five  million  gallons. 

The  business  of  pork-packing,  which  gave  the  city  the 
disagreeable  title  of  "  Porkopolis, "  but  which  also,  like  the 
equally  unpoetical  whiskey  business,  did  much  to  lay  the  foun- 
dations of  her  prosperity  and  to  enrich  individuals,  was  carried 
on  in  Cincinnati  as  early  as  181 2,  by  Richard  Fosdick,  and  by 
others.     In  the  pork  trade   Cincinnati  held  the  pre-eminence 


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Ft.  Washington  and  ''The  Bloody  Way"    193 

above  all  other  cities  of  the  world,  until  the  distinction  was 
captured  some  years  ago  by  a  younger  western  city. 

An  old  citizen  of  Cincinnati,  writing  in  1855,  and  referring 
to  a  time  before  the  city  had  much  encroached  on  the  plateau, 
says:  "At  that  time  these  hills  formed  a  border  of  such  sur- 
passing beauty,  around  the  plain  on  which  Cincinnati  stood, 
as  to  cause  us  who  remember  them  in  their  beauty,  almost  to 
regret  the  progress  of  improvement  which  has  taken  from  us 
what  it  can  never  restore."  Fortunately  the  grand  features 
of  the  wide-spreading  infinitely  varied  plateau,  that,  like  the 
terjaces  of  an  amphitheatre,  half  encircle  the  city  on  the  east, 
north,  west,  have,  thus  far,  been  devoted  mainly  to  residential 
purposes,  and  to  gardens,  parks,  reservoirs,  and  public  resorts 
which  add  to,  rather  than  detract  from,  the  original  attractive- 
ness of  the  scene.  It  is  upon  these  majestic  hill-tops  that  the 
Queen  City  of  the  West  really  had  her  throne.  Twenty-five 
years  ago,  James  Parton,  writing  for  the  Atlantic  Monthly, 
used  the  following  language:  "Behold  the  Fifth  avenue  of 
Cincinnati !  It  is  not  merely  the  pleasant  street  of  villas  and 
gardens  along  the  brow  of  the  hill,  though  that  is  part  of  it. 
Mount  to  the  cupola  of  the  Mount  Auburn  Young  Ladies' 
School,  which  stands  near  the  highest  point,  and  look  out  over 
a  sea  of  beautifully  formed,  umbrageous  hills,  steep  enough  to 
be  picturesque,  but  not  too  steep  to  be  convenient,  and  observe 
that  upon  each  summit,  as  far  as  the  eye  can  reach,  is  an  elegant 
cottage  or  mansion,  or  a  cluster  of  beautiful  villas  surrounded 
by  groves,  gardens,  and  lawns.  This  is  Cincinnati's  Fifth 
avenue.  Here  reside  the  families  enriched  by  the  industry 
of  the  low,  smoky  town.  Here  upon  these  enchanting  hills 
and  in  these  inviting  valleys  will  finally  gather  the  greater  part 
of  the  population,  leaving  the  city  to  the  smoke  and  heat,  when 
the  labors  of  the  day  are  done.  As  far  as  we  have  seen  or  read, 
no  inland  city  in  the  world  surpasses  Cincinnati,  in  the  beauty 
of  its  environs.  They  present  as  perfect  a  combination  of  the 
picturesque  and  the  accessible  as  can  anywhere  be  found. 
There  are  still  the  primeval  forests  and  the  virgin  soil  to  favor 
the  plans  of  the  artist  in  'capabilities.'  The  Duke  of  New- 
castle's party,  one  of  whom  was  the  Prince  of  Wales,  were  not 

13 


194  The  Ohio  River 

flattering  their  entertainers  when  they  pronounced  the  suburbs 
of  Cincinnati  the  finest  they  had  anywhere  seen." 

Cincinnati  holds  a  very  respectable  rank  among  cities  on 
the  score  of  architectural  achievements.  The  greater  number 
of  her  public  buildings  were  designed  by  home  architects  and 
constructed  by  local  builders.  The  city,  however,  boasts  of 
one  of  the  noblest  designs  of  Richardson — namely,  the  Chamber 
of  Commerce  building,  on  the  southwest  corner  of  Fourth  and 
Vine  streets.  The  City  Hall,  the  Armory,  the  great  Exposition 
and  Music  Hall,  and  the  Odeon,  all  designed  by  Hannaford, 
are  among  the  most  imposing  of  our  public  buildings.  The 
Art  Museum  and  the  Art  Academy,  in  Eden  Park,  are  noble 
specimens  of  the  work  of  the  architect,  McLaughlin.  The 
government  building,  in  which  are  the  post-office,  the  custom 
house,  and  the  United  States  courts,  was  designed  by  Mullet. 

The  rate  of  increase  of  population  for  the  past  eighty  years 
has  been  regular  and  comparatively  rapid.  The  population  in 
1810  was  750;  in  1820,  9,602;  in  1830,  24,831;  in  1840,  46,338, 
in  1850,  115,438;  in  i860,  161,044;  in  1870,  216,239;  in  1880, 
255,139;  in  1890,  296,308.  The  city  now  occupies  forty-three 
square  miles;  its  population,  January  i,  1905,  was  over  four 
hundred  thousand.  The  net  public  debt  was  thirty-one  million; 
and  the  assessed  valuation  of  all  taxable  property  $224,139,960; 
the  tax  rate  was  2.25.  The  total  foreign  bom  population  is 
57,961;  of  this  38,219  are  German  bom. 

But  numbers  are  not  the  only  or  the  chief  thing  that  makes 
a  city  great.  Not  how  many  but  what  kind  of  men  determines 
the  character  of  a  community.  Every  city,  in  the  long  run, 
finds  its  true  mission  in  the  world's  affairs,  and  fulfils  its  destiny. 
Cincinnati  has  passed  through  several  phases  of  development, 
and  present  indications  seem  to  promise  for  her  a  high  career 
in  the  skilled  industries,  liberal  arts,  and  in  enterprises  social, 
intellectual,  and  aesthetic.  No  longer  is  she  called  Porkopolis 
or  the  Tyre  of  the  West,  but  the  City  of  Beautiful  Suburbs,  the 
Paris  of  America,  the  Central  Metropolis  of  Art  and  Music, 
the  Social  Capital  of  the  Ohio  Valley. 


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Chapter  IX. 

The  Reign  of  Outlaw  and  Rowdy. 

THE  pioneers  who  entered  the  Ohio  Valley  after 
its  conquest  from  the  aborigines  found  it  to 
be  a  beautiful  gem  very  much  in  the  rough. 
Savage  conditions  did  not  prevail,  it  is  true,  so 
far  as  scalping  and  burning  at  the  stake  were  typical  of 
them,  but  it  was  many  years  before  life  and  property 
were  safe  from  outlaws,  and  more  before  rowdies  and 
rowdyism  ceased  to  menace  liberty  and  the  pursuit 
of  happiness. 

The  lawless  condition  of  the  land,  and  its  compara- 
tively small  number  of  inlaws  made  the  West  a  haven 
for  outlaws,  from  the  southern  and  eastern  States; 
once  over  the  mountains  and  afloat  on  the  Ohio  all 
such  men  were  free  to  turn  over  life's  leaf  and  begin 
anew.  Perhaps  some  did  this,  though  we  have  heard 
more  of  those  who  did  not. 

But  the  West  was  not  dependent  upon  the  East  for 
its  desperadoes  and  cutthroats;  the  home  industry, 
Indian  fighting,  had  raised  up  a  class  of  "caitiff 
wretches,"  as  one  general  called  them,  that  would  have 
done  honor  to  the  docks  and  grog-shops  of  any  Atlantic 
seaboard  city.  Drifting  about  from  place  to  place 
setting  up  claims  for  land  that  rightfully  belonged  to 
others,  now  and  then,  if  the  exigency  of  the  case  de- 
manded, committing  brutal  murder,  and  at  all  times 
brawling  in  grog-shops  and  pilfering  along  the  rivers, 

195 


196  The  Ohio  River 

the  outlaws  of  the  "Ohio  country"  gained  a  national 
reputation.  But  it  will  be  readily  admitted  that  in  this 
matter  there  has  been  a  vast  deal  of  exaggeration; 
there  was  but  one  Harpe,  and  but  one  Harpe's  head 
raised  on  a  pole ;  yet  to  read  some  pages  one  would  be- 
lieve there  was  a  Harpe's  head  on  every  tree  in  the 
West,  and  an  uncouth  murderer  behind  every  bush 
that  grew  along  the  wild  Ohio's  bank  of  flowers.  Every 
new  country  must  needs  suffer,  it  seems,  from  the  pens 
of  travellers  who  portray  exceptional  incidents  so 
vividly  as  to  make  the  exception  seem  the  common- 
place. And  it  is  also  true  that  local  historians  have 
been  guilty  of  exaggeration  of  events  in  their  own  lo- 
calities ;  many  small  affairs  have  assumed  great  propor- 
tions under  the  gentle  breath  of  legend. 

The  lower  Ohio  River  was  very  sparsely  settled 
until  a  comparatively  late  date  and  in  pioneer  days 
this  portion  of  the  river  was  for  a  time  a  noted  resort 
for  bands  of  pirates  from  whose  hands  the  descending 
fiatboatman  did  well  to  steer  clear.  Cave-in-Rock, 
on  the  Illinois  shore  near  the  present  hamlet  of  that 
name,  was  a  notorious  rendezvous  for  a  number  of 
years.  This  is  a  cavern  measuring  about  two  hundred 
feet  long  and  eighty  feet  wide ;  at  its  mouth  it  is  eighty 
feet  wide  and  twenty-five  feet  high.  The  floor  was  very 
smooth  throughout,  and  the  walls  arose  in  grades  like 
seats  in  a  theatre.  Strange  hieroglyphics  dating  far 
back  into  prehistoric  days  covered  the  gloomy  walls. 
The  mystery  of  the  place  was  enhanced  by  another 
room-like  apartment  over  the  cavern ;  the  passage-way 
to  this  second  cavern  was  like  a  huge  chimney  some 
fourteen  feet  long.  Since  about  the  time  of  the  War 
of  181 2,  if  not  before,  this  grotto  has  borne  the  name 


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The  Reign  of  Outlaw  and  Rowdy         197 

Cave-in-Rock ;  above  it  towers  a  rocky  eminence  into 
which  the  gruelling  hands  of  the  floods  have  torn  this 
aperture. 

Early  in  the  century  a  man  named  Wilson  brought 
his  family  to  this  river  stronghold  and  made  it  his  home. 
More  than  that,  he  threw  the  home  open  to  the  passing 
public  and  mounted  his  hospitable  sign,  "Wilson's 
Liquor  Vault  and  House  of  Entertainment,"  where  now 
the  passer-by  reads  "St.  Jacob's  Oil";  if  the  pro- 
prietor's liquids  were  not  a  balm  it  was  not  because 
there  were  not  broken  heads  to  mend.  For  the  idea 
gained  for  its  originator  all  the  returns  that  his  in- 
genuity deserved;  flatboats  were  continually  passing 
down  the  river  to  Mississippi  ports  and  a  grog-shop  at 
the  water's  edge  was  a  feature  that  at  that  day  and 
that  place  could  not  fail  to  attract  both  the  curious 
and  the  thirsty.  As  evil  never  fails  to  carry  in  it  the 
seeds  of  its  own  undoing,  so  here  the  House  of  Enter- 
tainment soon  gathered  a  plotting  band  of  guerillas 
headed  by  none  other  than  Wilson,  the  proprietor, 
which  began  a  murderous  confidence  game  that  takes 
rank  in  the  West  with  the  worst  of  outrages.  The 
"gang"  made  its  headquarters  on  nearby  Hurricane 
Island  and  the  plan  of  operations  was  fiendishly  simple; 
flatboats  en  route,  for  instance,  to  New  Orleans,  and 
richly  laden,  were  inveigled  to  the  cave,  where  in  short 
order  the  commander  and  crew  were  made  way  with, 
and  a  crew  from  the  island  took  charge  of  the  boat  and 
floated  it  to  New  Orleans ;  here  the  cargo  and  boat  were 
sold  and  upon  returning  to  Cave-in-Rock  the  proceeds 
were  divided.  Many  circumstances  combined  to  make 
this  conspiracy  safe  and  the  conspirators  wholly  free  from 
suspicion.     The  danger  of  river  travel  on  the  Ohio  and 


198  The  Ohio  River 

Mississippi  was  great,  and  so  many  boats  were  wrecked 
that  the  owners  of  any  one  of  the  captured  boats  could 
easily  account  for  their  loss  on  the  score  of  dangerous 
navigation.  Then,  too,  there  were  the  dangers  of  the 
return  overland  trip  from  New  Orleans  in  case  the  boat 
did  reach  its  destination  in  safety ;  this  journey  through 
Tennessee  and  Kentucky,  as  will  be  shown,  was  perilous 
in  the  extreme  for  those  carrying  money.  Thus  the 
desperadoes  at  Hurricane  Island  were  not  suspected 
for  some  time,  and  it  was  longer  still  before  the  scat- 
tered population  of  that  region  took  the  matter  into 
its  hands.  Wilson's  band  numbered  nearly  fifty; 
many  of  these  escaped  before  the  storm  broke;  a  few 
were  taken  prisoners.  A  large  price  was  set  on  Wil- 
son's head  and,  to  obtain  it,  one  of  his  own  murderous 
gang  killed  him.  "Not  long  after,"  writes  so  good 
an  authority  as  Collins,  "in  the  upper  room  of  his 
mysterous  cavern  were  found  about  sixty  skeletons, 
which  confirmed  the  tale  of  systematic  confidence, 
betrayal,  and  murder." 

As  the  pirates'  ships  hung  ever  around  the  watery 
track  of  the  richly  laden  East  Indiamen^  so  land  pirates 
in  all  countries  have  laid  in  wait  along  the  paths  which 
were  used  by  laden  wagons  or  ponies  or  along  which 
merchants  passed  with  the  profits  of  their  enterprise. 

In  the  early  history  of  the  Ohio  Valley  there  was 
a  famous  path  which  well  might  have  borne  that  title 
given  by  the  Ohio  Indians  to  the  route  on  which  so 
many  emissaries  of  peace  had  been  murdered — "the 
Bloody  Way."  This  was  the  worn  trail  northward 
from  New  Orleans  through  Mississippi  and  Tennessee 
to  Kentucky  over  which  came  the  returning  boatmen 
or  shipper's  agents  bringing  northward  the  money  paid 


The  Reign  of  Outlaw  and  Rowdy  199 

for  their  goods  in  southern  markets.  This  path  with 
its  red  tales  of  bloodshed  indicates  the  distance  of 
markets  which  was  such  a  handicap  to  all  early  settlers 
in  the  Ohio  Valley.  Until  well  along  in  the  nineteenth 
century  there  were  no  markets  of  note  short  of  lower 
Mississippi  ports.  The  return  trip  with  goods  by 
water  was  a  ver}^  laborious  operation,  occupying  weeks 
of  severest  labor  with  oar,  sail,  and  cordelle;  it  was 
more  common  to  ask  for  cash  than  for  goods  in  trade, 
and  unless  the  merchant  or  merchant's  agent  returned 
by  the  roundabout  sea-route  the  short  road  home  was 
this  "Tennessee  Path."  Often  the  path  was  the  route 
of  drovers  taking  cattle  southward  for  sale;  the  path 
was  the  natural  route  homeward.  Of  the  scores  of 
famous  crimes  on  this  long  path  which  ran  through  the 
Indian  territory  the  murder  of  Dr.  John  P.  Sanderson, 
as  told  at  length  in  the  Louisville  Courier- Journal  of 
November,  1870,  is  one  of  the  most  singular. 

In  the  year  181 7,  Dr.  John  P.  Sanderson,  a  rich 
planter  living  near  Natchez,  started  northward  to 
Kentucky  to  purchase  slaves  for  his  plantation.  He 
carried  with  him  a  quantity  of  money  for  his  purchase 
and  en  route  fell  in  with  one  John  C.  Hamilton  who 
had  brought  a  drove  of  cattle  South  and  was  returning 
with  the  proceeds  of  a  sale  he  had  effected.  In  the 
wild  and  sparsely-settled  "Indian  Territory,"  through 
which  the  trail  ran,  Sanderson  fell  ill.  On  their  arrival 
in  Barren  County,  Kentucky,  the  Doctor  went  to  the 
home  of  Hamilton's  father  where  the  two  remained 
several  days.  When  he  was  ready  to  proceed  John 
Hamilton  set  out  to  act  as  a  guide  for  a  few  miles. 
Sanderson  was  never  seen  alive  again;  a  posse  of  citi- 
zens scoured  the  country  and  found  his  body  beside 


200  The  Ohio  River 

the  highway,  beyond  the  point  where  Hamilton  said 
he  had  accompanied  the  unfortunate  man,  covered 
with  brush  and  briers.  His  hat  was  found  in  a  hollow 
stump  and  his  brass  horse  pistol  with  the  hammer 
broken  lay  near  by.  This  hammer  was  found  im- 
bedded in  the  dead  man's  head,  and  in  the  lining  of  the 
hat  was  found  a  list  of  thirty-three  one-hundred-dollar 
Mississippi  bank  bills. 

Hamilton  was  arrested  and  the  bills  called  for  in  the 
list  were  in  his  possession,  and  his  "  sherry- vallies " 
were  found  hid  near  his  father's  bam,  blood-spattered. 
Hamilton  maintained  that  he  had  given  Kentucky 
money  to  Sanderson  for  his  Mississippi  bills,  which  were 
at  a  discount  at  the  North,  and  that  his  sherry-vallies 
had  been  stolen  from  him  and  worn  to  a  dance  by  his 
negroes.  In  defence  he  also  proved  his  faithfulness  in 
nursing  Dr.  Sanderson  throughout  his  illness.  Yet 
such  was  the  spirit  of  the  enraged  people  that  he  was 
convicted  and  hung  for  the  murder.  The  real  culprits 
had  succeeded  in  fastening  on  a  guiltless  man  the  stigma 
of  their  crime;  for  many  years  later  a  Vicksburg 
planter,  Colonel  Gibson,  informed  Hon.  Richard  H. 
Rousseau,  then  U.  S.  Minister  to  Central  America,  that 
a  criminal  about  to  be  hung  for  murder  in  eastern 
Mississippi  had  confessed  under  the  gallows  that  he  and 
a  fellow-outlaw  had  murdered  Dr.  Sanderson. 

Micajah  Harpe  was  the  outlaw,  par  excellence,  of  the 
Ohio  Valley,  as  Mike  Fink  was  the  rowdy.  They  are 
not  typical ;  their  deeds  establish  a  high-water  mark  of 
brutality  and  rowd3dsm;  others  aped  them,  but  none 
excelled.  Harpe  could  hardly  have  borne  a  more 
fitting  name,  with  all  its  revolting  allusion  to  classic 
times.      He  was   above  medium   stature,   bony   and 


bc 

V 

U 


The  Reign  of  Outlaw  and  Rowdy         201 

muscular,  powerful  of  limb,  broad  of  chest — in  short, 
of  heroic  mould.  If  he  was  extraordinary  in  physical 
strength,  he  was  not  less  extraordinary  in  appearance; 
according  to  his  biographers  no  man's  face  was  more 
revolting.  "Instead  of  the  healthy  hue  which  indi- 
cates the  social  emotions,"  writes  Collins,  "there  was 
a  livid  unnatural  redness,  resembhng  that  of  a  dried  and 
lifeless  skin.  His  face,  which  was  larger  than  ordinary, 
exhibited  the  Hnes  of  ungovernable  passion,  and  the 
complexion  announced  that  the  ordinary  feelings  of 
the  human  breast  were  in  him  extinguished." 

When  he  entered  the  Ohio  Basin,  presumably  from 
North  Carolina,  he  was  accompanied  by  his  younger 
brother,  Wiley  Harpe,  of  less  gigantic  proportions  but 
of  hardly  less  revolting  appearance.  With  them  came 
three  women,  two  of  them  the  "wives"  of  the  greater 
Harpe  and  one  that  of  the  lesser.  At  the  opening  of 
the  story  of  their  last  and  most  desperate  outrage  the 
wives  of  the  Harpes  were  living  but  a  few  miles  from 
Henderson,  Kentucky,  on  the  Ohio  River,  and  their 
husbands  were  journeying  to  them,  preparatory  to 
moving  through  Kentucky  toward  the  South.  Enter- 
ing Hopkins  County  they  passed  through  the  wild 
region  south  of  Green  River  in  the  guise  of  Methodist 
preachers,  dressed  in  broadcloth  coats,  but  well  horsed 
and  well  armed.  Stopping  at  the  home  of  James 
Tompkins,  near  Steuben's  Lick,  they  carried  out  their 
role  to  the  end,  one  of  them  saying  grace  at  the  table 
with  deliberation  and  at  great  length.  Their  host 
acknowledged  that  his  powder-horn  was  nearly  empty, 
whereupon  the  good  Samaritans  generously  divided 
with  him  their  supply.  Proceeding  on  toward  the 
Ohio  River  they  passed  the  home  of  Moses  Stigall,  five 


202  The  Ohio  River 

miles  on,  and  that  of  Peter  Ruby,  eleven  miles  from 
Stigall's.  In  a  day  or  so  they  reached  their  wives  and 
began  the  return  journey  with  precipitation — ^undoubt- 
edly planning  deliberately  to  leave  a  broad  trail  of 
blood  in  their  wake.  Hon.  Joseph  R.  Underwood 
leaves  the  following  account  of  their  journey,  which  he 
received  in  part  from  John  B.  Ruby,  who  saw  the 
Harpes  at  the  Ruby  cabin  on  their  way  to  the  Ohio 
River : 

They  encamped  for  the  night,  a  few  miles  from  the  residence 
of  Stigall,  who  owed  one  of  the  women  a  dollar.  Stigall  met  the 
party  in  the  flats  of  Deer  Creek,  as  he  was  going  to  the  Robinson 
Lick,  north  of  the  Ohio,  for  salt,  and  told  the  women  to  call  on 
his  wife,  and  tell  her  to  pay  the  dollar.  He  said  his  wife  did  not 
know  where  he  kept  his  money,  and,  accordingly,  sent  proper 
directions.  One  or  all  of  the  wives  of  the  Harpes  went  to  the 
house  of  Stigall,  and  told  his  wife  what  her  husband  had  said, 
vihe  found  his  purse,  which  contained  about  forty  dollars  in 
silver,  out  of  which  she  paid  the  dollar  due  her.  The  wives  told 
their  husbands  how  much  money  seemed  to  be  in  the  pile  poured 
out  of  the  purse.  .  .  .  Mrs  Stigall  was  a  young  woman  with 
only  one  child.  A  man  named  Love  was  staying  that  night  at 
the  house.  The  two  Harpes  left  their  camp  and  went  to  the 
house  .  .  .  got  the  money,  murdered  the  wife  and  child  and 
Mr.  Love;  then  set  the  house  on  fire,  and  burnt  up  the  mur- 
dered bodies,  and  all  that  was  in  it.  Two  men  named  Hudgens 
and  Gilmore  were  returning  from  the  lick  with  their  packs  of 
salt,  and  had  camped  for  the  night  not  far  from  Stigall's.  About 
daylight  the  Harpes  went  to  their  camp,  and  arrested  them 
upon  pretence  that  they  had  committed  robbery,  murder,  and 
arson.  .  .  .  They  shot  Gilmore,  who  died  on  the  spot.  Hud- 
gens broke  and  ran,  but  was  overtaken  .  .  .  and  put  to  death. 

News  of  these  murders  spread  .  .  .  with  rapidity.  The 
conclusion  was  universal  that  these  crimes  were  the  deeds  of 
the  Harpes.  Large  rewards  were  offered  by  the  Governors  of 
Kentucky''  and  Tennessee  for  their  heads.  .  .  .     The  pioneers 


The  Reign  of  Outlaw  and  Rowdy         203 

of  the  wilderness  resolved  to  capture  them.  A  company  was 
formed,  consisting  of  John  Leeper,  James  Tompkins,  Silas 
Magby,  Nevil  Lindsey,  Mathew  Christy,  Robert  Robertson,  and 
the  infuriated  Moses  Stigall.  .  .  .  These  men,  armed  with 
rifles,  got  on  the  trail  of  the  Harpes  and  overtook  them  at  their 
camp,  upon  the  waters  of  Pond  River.  .  .  .  About  a  quarter 
of  a  mile  from  camp,  the  pursuing  party  saw  Little  Harpe,  and 
a  man  named  Smith  .  .  .  conversing  near  a  branch  of  water. 
Little  Harpe  charged  Smith  with  being  a  horse-thief  and  blew 
in  his  charger — (a  small  implement  with  which  the  hunter 
measures  his  powder  for  loading  his  gun).  The  shrill  sound, 
their  usual  signal  for  danger,  soon  brought  Big  Harpe  to  see 
what  was  the  matter.  .  .  .  Big  Harpe  came  mounted  on  a 
fine  gray  mare,  the  property  of  the  murdered  Love.  .  .  .  The 
pursuers,  not  doubting  the  guilt  of  those  whom  they  had  over- 
taken, without  warning,  fired  upon  them,  badly  wounding 
Smith,  but  not  hitting  either  of  the  Harpes.  Big  Harpe  was 
in  the  act  of  shooting  Smith.  .  .  .  He  had  already  cocked  his 
gun  and  told  Smith  he  must  die.  But  surprised  by  the  volley.  .  . 
he  reserved  his  fire,  whirled  Love's  mare  and  galloped  off  to 
his  camp.  Little  Harpe  ran  off  on  foot  into  a  thicket,  and 
was  not  seen  afterward. 

The  pursuers  hastened  toward  the  camp,  and  saw  Big 
Harpe  hastily  saddling  the  horses  and  preparing  to  take  the 
women  with  him.  Seeing  their  rapid  approach,  he  mounted 
Love's  mare,  armed  with  rifle  and  pistols,  and  darted  off,  leaving 
the  women  and  children  to  provide  for  themselves.  They  were 
made  prisoners.  .  .  .  Love's  mare  was  large  and  strong,  and 
carried  the  two  hundred  pounds  weight  of  her  rider,  Big  Harpe, 
with  much  ease,  and  he  seemed  to  call  on  her  to  expend  all  her 
strength  in  his  behalf.  Tompkins,  rather  a  small  man,  rode 
a  thoroughbred  full-blooded  bay  mare  of  the  best  Virginian 
stock,  and  led  in  the  pursuit.  He  had  chased  thieves  before, 
and  the  only  account  he  gave  of  one  of  them  was,  "that  he  would 
never  steal  another  horse."  Nance,  his  mare,  exhibited  both 
speed  and  bottom  in  this  race  for  life  or  death.  ...  In  the 
first  two  or  three  miles  Harpe  kept  far  ahead,  no  one  trailing 
in  sight  except  Tompkins.  There  was  no  difficulty  in  following, 
through  the  rich  mellow  soil  of  the  wilderness,  the  tracks  made 


204  The  Ohio  River 

by  the  horses  of  Harpe  and  Tompkins.  Leeper  was  second  in. 
the  chase  and  the  rest  followed  as  rapidly  as  possible.  As  the 
race  progressed,  Big  Harpe  drove  into  a  thick  forest  of  large 
trees  upon  a  creek  bottom.  As  he  approached  the  stream  to 
cross  it  he  encountered  a  large  poplar  tree  .  .  .  which  had 
been  blown  down.  ,  .  .  The  bank  was  so  high  and  perpendicular 
that  it  was  impossible  to  descend  and  cross  the  creek  with 
safety,  and  alike  dangerous  to  attempt  jumping  over  the  tree. 
He  retraced  his  steps  to  the  head  of  the  tree,  and  there  met 
Tompkins  face  to  face,  with  some  thirty  steps  between  them. 
Each  reined  up  his  steed  and  stopped.  Neither  attempted  to 
fire.  Tompkins  told  Harpe  that  escape  was  impossible,  and  he 
had  better  surrender.  "Never"  was  the  brief  reply.  Harpe 
dashed  ofE  at  full  speed,  while  Tompkins  tarried  for  Leeper. 
As  soon  as  he  came  up,  he  said:  "Why  didn't  you  shoot?" 
Tompkins  replied  that  his  mare  was  so  fiery  he  could  not  make 
a  safe  shot  upon  her,  and  he  would  not  fire  unless  he  was  sure 
of  execution. 

Leeper  had  fired  upon  the  Harpes  at  the  branch,  and  finding 
that  his  ramrod  could  not  be  drawn  in  consequence  of  its  having 
got  wet,  told  Tompkins  he  could  not  reload,  that  his  horse  was 
failing,  and  that  Harpe  would  escape  unless  Nance  should 
catch  him.  Tompkins  replied:  "She  can  run  over  him  upon 
any  part  of  the  ground."  Leeper  said,  "Let  us  exchange 
horses  and  give  me  your  gun  and  shot-pouch,  and  I  '11  bring 
him  down,  if  I  can  overtake  him. "  They  dismounted,  exchanged 
horses  and  arms,  and  Leeper  dashed  forward  after  Big  Harpe. 
The  noble  mare  proved  her  ability  to  "run  over  him  upon  any 
part  of  the  ground. " 

Leeper  crossed  the  creek,  and,  after  passing  through  the 
thick  tall  trees  in  the  bottom,  came  in  sight  of  the  fleeing  Harpe 
as  he  reached  higher  ground,  with  its  prairie  grass  and  scattered 
trees.  Nance  gradually  gained.  When  Leeper  came  up  within 
thirty  yards,  Harpe  warned  him  "to  stand  off,  or  he  would  kill 
him."  Leeper  replied:  "One  of  us  has  to  die,  and  the  hardest 
fend  off. "  As  the  woods  became  more  open  and  interposed 
fewer  obstructions,  Leeper  thought  he  had  "a  good  chance." 
Suddenly  putting  Nance  to  her  full  speed,  he  rushed  up  within 
ten  steps  of  Harpe,  threw  his  leg  over  the  mane,  and  the  bridle 


V 

> 


o 


a 

o 


en 
to 


C/3 

cn 
-a 


\y., 


% 


The  Reign  of  Outlaw  and  Rowdy  205 

over  Nance's  head,  jumped  to  the  ground,  took  aim,  and  fired. 
Harpe  reined  up,  turned,  presented  his  gun,  and  it  snapped — 
all  without  dismounting.  Leeper  afterwards  said:  "If  Harpe's 
gun  had  not  snapped,  the  ball  would  not  have  passed  within 
twenty  yards  of  me,  so  badly  was  it  aimed.  "  Harpe  then  threw 
his  gun  down,  wheeled  the  gray  mare,  and  pushed  on  his  course. 
From  these  circumstances,  Leeper  knew  he  had  hit  him.  He 
caught  and  remounted  Nance,  and  soon  overtook  Harpe,  who 
told  him  to  keep  off,  or  he  would  shoot  him  with  a  pistol.  In 
a  few  seconds,  Harpe  ceased  to  urge  the  gray  mare  forward, 
and  put  both  his  hands  to  the  pommel  of  the  saddle  to  hold  on. 
Leeper  rushed  alongside  and  threw  him  to  the  ground.  Two 
balls  had  entered  near  his  backbone;  and  come  out  near  the 
breastbone.  Harpe  begged  that  he  might  be  taken  to  justice 
and  not  be  put  to  instant  death.  Leeper  told  him  his  request 
was  useless;  that  his  wound  was  fatal,  and  he  must  soon  die. 
Tompkins  and  the  other  pursuers  came  up  one  by  one.  Stigall 
immediately  presented  his  gun,  with  a  view  to  blow  his  brains 
out;  but  Harpe  moving  his  head  backwards  and  forwards, 
so  as  to  prevent  it,  Stigall  placed  the  muzzle  against  his  body 
as  he  lay  on  the  ground,  and  shot  him  through  the  heart. 

Thus  perished  the  most  brutal  monster  of  the  human  race. 
His  head  was  cut  off  by  Stigall.  .  .  .  The  party  intended  to 
use  the  head  in  getting  the  large  rewards  which  had  been  offered 
.  .  .  but  the  heat  of  summer  rendered  its  preservation  im- 
practicable. A  tall  young  tree,  growing  by  the  side  of  the 
trail  or  road,  was  selected,  and  trimmed  of  its  lateral  branches 
to  its  top,  and  then  made  sharp.  On  this  point  the  head  was 
fastened.  The  skull  and  jaw-bone  remained  there  for  many 
years.  The  place  where  this  tree  grew  is  in  Webster  county, 
and  is  known  upon  the  map  of  Kentucky  as  "Harpe's  Head" 
to  this  day. 

This  point  is  three  miles  from  Dixon,  Webster 
County,  and  some  twenty  miles  back  from  the  river  at 
a  point  where  the  roads  from  Henderson,  Morganfield, 
and  Hopkinsville  meet. 

The  reign  of  rowdyism  in  the  West  was  of  prolonged 


2o6  The  Ohio  River 

duration,  attracting  wide  attention  and  gaining  for 
the  Ohio  Valley  particularly  a  reputation  as  unique  as 
it  was  unsavory.  The  river  was  the  highway  of  travel 
and  consequently  social  conditions  here  came  under  the 
eye  of  hosts  of  travellers,  whose  accounts  had,  often,  a 
wide  circulation.  Frequently  these  accounts  are  told 
with  literal  truthfulness  and  yet,  as  they  stand,  are 
misrepresentations.  The  West  was  very  new,  and 
one  who  has  read  the  preceding  pages  of  this  history 
realizes  what  a  struggle  the  conquest  and  occu- 
pation of  the  Ohio  Basin  had  been  and  how  natu- 
rally this  conflict  left  its  impress  upon  society;  early 
travellers  described  the  fighting  and  ' '  gouging ' '  of  river- 
men  and  others  as  unparalleled;  and  in  a  couple  of 
decades  other  travellers  described  a  swearing  and 
tobacco-spitting  generation  as  equally  unparalleled, 
without  realizing  that  the  inhuman  era  of  fighting  had 
passed  away  and  society  was  moving  upward.  There 
was  little  difference  socially  between  the  lowest  ele- 
ment in  an  Ohio  River  village  and  the  lowest  element 
in  the  villages  eastward  of  the  Alleghenies. 

This  rowdyism  was  a  natural  product  of  the  era  of 
disputes  over  land  and  of  grubbing.  It  was  a  hard 
time  to  live  or  let  live;  the  "good  old  days"  are  written 
and  spoken  of  lightly  but  they  must  not  be  made  to 
cover  the  first  two  generations  of  pioneer  life  in  the 
West;  the  life  was  exhausting,  and  only  its  brightest 
side  is  represented  by  the  "log-rollings"  and  "com- 
huskings"  which  are  sometimes  portrayed  as  typical 
of  the  early  days.  They  were  not  so,  by  any  manner  of 
means;  the  forests  were  to  be  felled,  the  great  logs 
rolled  together  and  burned,  the  families  reared  and 
provided  for,  and  usually  the  land  to  be  paid  for — ^with 


The  Reign  of  Outlaw  and  Rowdy  207 

markets  many  miles  away.  And  all  this  had  to  be 
done  under  the  most  difficult  climatic  conditions,  the 
fevers  attacking  the  men  at  their  work  in  the  wet  for- 
ests, especially  along  the  rivers,  with  regularity  and 
often  with  fatal  effect.  "When  this  home-building 
and  land-clearing  is  accomplished,"  wrote  a  man  who 
knew  what  the  "old  days"  were,  "a  faithful  picture 
would  reveal  not  only  the  changes  that  had  been 
wrought,  but  a  host  of  prematurely  broken  down  men 
and  women,  besides  an  undue  proportion  resting 
peacefully  in  country  grave-yards."  If  one  should  at- 
tempt truly  to  chronicle  merely  the  hardship  and  suf- 
fering of  a  day  when  dentists  and  rubbers  or  rubber 
boots  were  unknow^n,  the  result  would  be  too  painful 
to  be  interesting  reading. 

These  hard  conditions  of  life  on  land  had  their 
effect  on  the  social  fabric ;  rough  work  meant,  on  the 
average,  rough  men.  On  the  river  the  same  conditions 
prevailed ;  here  the  work  was,  perhaps,  rougher,  and  the 
riverman  was  in  consequence  rougher  than  his  neigh- 
bor on  shore.  The  professional  keelboatman  or  flat- 
boatman  was  indeed  a  "tough  customer";  alternating 
between  the  severest  manual  labor  and  idleness,  the 
relaxation  as  well  as  the  gruelling  struggle  with  the 
cordelle  or  the  heavy  sweeps  tended  to  make  these  men 
as  boisterous  at  play  as  they  were  hard-driven  when  at 
work.  While  the  flatboats  were  going  down-stream 
one  man  at  the  "gouger,"  or  in  the  stem,  could  keep 
the  boat  in  the  current;  but  if  the  boat  returned,  both 
oar  and  the  ropes  attached  to  the  shores  were  con- 
stantly strained  to  the  breaking-point.  When  the 
hours  of  relaxation  came,  it  is  not  strange  that  these 
men  indulged  in  sport  as  strenuous  and  remarkable  as 


2o8  The  Ohio  River 

their  toil  had  been  severe.  The  one  chief  sport  was 
fighting,  and  the  bully  of  the  Ohio  Valley  was  King  of 
the  Valley  in  those  old  days. 

The  common  expression  of  a  boastful  old-time 
Ohio  River  rowdy  was  that  he  was  "half  horse,  half 
alligator" ;  they  are  referred  to  in  an  olden  print  as  the 
"half -horse,  half -alligator  nuisance."  A  picture  of 
one  of  these  heroes — possibly  an  exaggerated  picture — 
is  preserved  in  Cisfs  Miscellanies: 

As  we  were  yesterday  passing  by  the  court-house,  where  an 
election  was  going  on,  a  real  "  screamer  from  the  Mob,"  about 
six  feet  four  in  height,  sprang  out  of  the  crowd,  and,  rolling  up 
his  shirt-sleeves,  commenced  the  following  tirade  : 

"This  is  me,  and  no  mistake!  Billy  Earthquake,  Esquire, 
commonly  called  Little  Billy,  all  the  way  from  North  Fork  of 
Muddy  Run!  I  'm  a  small  specimei^,  as  you  see — a  remote 
circumstance,  a  mere  yearling;  but  cuss  me,  if  I  ain't  of  the 
true  '  imported  breed,'  and  can  whip  any  man  in  this  section 
of  country!  Whoop!  Won't  nobody  come  out  and  fight  me? 
Come  out  some  of  you  and  die  decently,  for  I  am  spileing  for  a 
fight!  I  han't  had  one  for  more  than  a  week,  and  if  you  don't 
come  out,  I  'm  fly  blowed  before  sun-down,  to  a  certingty,  so 
come  up  to  tan!  May  be  you  don't  know  who  Little  Billy  is? 
I  '11  tell  you:  I  'm  a  poor  man — it  's  a  fact — and  smell  like  a  wet 
dog;  but  I  can't  be  run  over!  I  'm  the  identical  individual 
that  grinned  a  whole  menagerie  out  of  countenance,  and  made 
the  ribbed  nose  baboon  hang  down  his  head  and  blush! 
W-h-o-o-p!  I  'm  the  chap,  too,  that  towed  the  'Broadhom* 
up  Salt  River,  where  the  snags  were  so  thick  that  a  fish  couldn't 
swim  without  rubbing  his  scales  off! — fact,  and  if  anybody 
denies  it,  just  let  'em  make  their  will!  Cock-a-doodle-doo! 
May  be  you  never  heard  of  the  time  the  horse  kicked  me  and 
put  both  his  hips  out  of  jint — if  it  ain't  true,  cut  me  up  for 
catfish  bait!  W-H-O-O-P!  I  'm-the  very  infant  that  refused 
his  milk  before  its  eyes  were  open,  and  called  out  for  a  bottle 
of  old  Rye!  W-H-O-O-P!  I  'm  that  Httle  Cupid!  Talk  to  me 
about  grinning  the  bark  off  a  tree! — 'taint  nothing;  one  squint 


o 

(-• 
■i-> 

'to 


</l 


V 


'O, 


The  Reign  of  Outlaw  and  Rowdy         209 

of  mine  at  a  Bull's  heel  would  blister  it!     Cock-a-doodle-doo! 

0  I  'm  one  of  your  toughest  sort — live  forever,  and  then  turn  to 
a  white-oak  post.  Look  at  me,"  said  he,  slapping  his  hands  on 
his  thighs  with  the  report  of  a  pocket  pistol,  "  I  'm  the  ginewine 
article — a  real  double  acting  engine,  and  I  can  out-run,  out- 
jump,  out-swim,  chaw  more  tobacco  and  spit  less,  and  drink 
more  whiskey  and  keep  soberer  than  any  other  man  in  these 
localities!  Cock-a-doodle-doo!  Darn  it,"  said  Bill,  walking  off 
in  disgust,  "if  that  don't  make  'em  fight  nothing  will.     I  wish 

1  may  be  kiln-dried,  and  split  up  into  wooden  shoe  pegs,  if  I  be- 
lieve there  is  a  chap  among  'em  that 's  got  courage  enough  to  collar 
a  hen.  Well!  I  '11  go  home  and  have  another  settlement  with 
Jo  Sykes.  He  's  a  bad  chance  for  a  fight,  it's  true,  seeing  as 
how  he  's  but  one  eye  left  to  gouge  at,  and  an  'under'  bit 
out  of  both  ears ;  but  poor  fellow,  he  's  willing  to  do  his  best,  and 
will  stay  a  body's  appetite  till  the  next  shooting  match."  Exit 
Little  Billy,  grumbling. 

A  fierce  old-time  fight  of  the  "gouging"  class  hap- 
pened to  take  place  at  Wheeling  in  April,  1806. 

The  quarrel  [wrote  a  spectator]  was  confined  to  a  Virginian 
by  birth,  and  a  Kentuckian  by  adoption.  A  ring  was  formed, 
and  the  mob  demanded  whether  they  proposed  to  -fight  fair, 
or  to  rough  and  tumble.  The  latter  mode  was  preferred.  .  .  . 
Bulk  and  bone  were  in  favor  of  the  Kentuckian;  science  and 
craft  in  that  of  the  Virginian.  The  former  promised  himself 
victory  from  his  power,  the  latter  from  his  science.  Very  few 
rounds  had  taken  place,  or  fatal  blows  given,  before  the  Vir- 
ginian contracted  his  whole  form,  drew  up  his  arms  to  his  face, 
with  his  hands  nearly  closed  in  a  concave,  by  the  fingers  being 
bent  to  the  full  extension  of  the  flexors,  and  summoning  up  all 
his  energy  for  one  act  of  desperation,  pitched  himself  into  the 
bosom  of  his  opponent.  Before  the  effects  of  this  could  be 
ascertained,  the  sky  was  rent  by  the  shouts  of  the  multitude; 
and  I  could  learn  that  the  Virginian  had  expressed  as  much 
beauty  and  skill  in  his  retraction  and  bound,  as  if  he  had  been 
bred  in  a  menagerie,  and  practised  action  and  attitude  among 
panthers  and  wolves.  The  shock  received  by  the  Kentuckii^n, 
and  the  want  of  breath,  brought  him  instantly  to  the  ground. 
14 


2IO  The  Ohio  River 

The  Virginian  never  lost  his  hold,  like  those  bats  of  the  South 
who  never  quit  the  subject  on  which  they  fasten  till  they  taste 
blood,  he  kept  his  knees  in  his  enemy's  body;    fixing  his  claws 
in  his  hair,  and  his  thumbs  on  his  eyes,  gave  them  an  instan- 
taneous start  from  their  sockets.     The  sufferer  roared  aloud, 
but  uttered   no   complaint.     The  citizens   again  shouted   with 
joy.     Doubts  were  no  longer  entertained;    and  bets  of  three  to 
one  were  offered  on  the  Virginian.     The  Kentuckian  not  being 
able  to  disentangle  his  adversary  from  his  face  adopted  a  new 
mode  of  warfare;  and,  in  imitation  of  the  serpent  which  crushes 
such  creatures  to  death  as  it  proposes  for  its  food,  he  extended 
his  arms  round  the  Virginian  and  hugged  him  into  closer  con- 
tact with  his  huge  body.     The  latter  disliking  this,  cast  loose 
the  hair  and  convex  eyes  of  his  adversary,  when  both,  folded 
together  like  bears   in   an   embrace,   rolled  several  turns  over 
each   other.     The   acclamations   increased,    and  bets   run   that 
the  Kentuckian  "would  give  out,"  that  is,  after  being  mutilated 
and  deprived  of  his  eyes,  ears,  and  nose,  he  would  cry  out  for 
mercy  and  aid.     The  public  were  not  precisely  right.     Some 
demon  interposed  for  the  biggest  monster;    he  got  his  enemy 
under  him,  and  in  an  instant  snapt  off  his  nose  so  close  to  his 
face  that  no  manner  of  projection  remained.     The  little  Vir- 
ginian made  one  further  effort,  and  fastening  on  the  under  lip 
of  his  mutilator  tore  it  over  the  chin.     The  Kentuckian  at  length 
gave  out,  on  which  the  people  carried  off  the  victor,  and  he  pre- 
ferring a  triumph  to  a  doctor,  who  came  to  cicatrize  his  face, 
suffered  himself  to  be  chaired  round  the  ground  as  the  champion 
of  the  times,  and  the  first  rough  and  tumbler.     The  poor  wretch 
whose   eyes   were   started   from   their   spheres,    and   whose   lip 
refused  its  office,  returned  to  the  town  to  hide  his  impotence, 
and    get    his    countenance    repaired.  ...     I    asked    a    friend 
whether  this  kind  of  conduct  spread  down  the  river.     I  under- 
stood that  it  did  on  the  left-hand  side,  and  that  I  would  do  well 
to  land  there  as  little  as  possible.  ...     I  again  demanded  how 
a  stranger  was  to  distinguish  a  good  from  a  vicious  house  of 
entertainment.     I   was   answered,   by   previous   inquiry,   or,   if 
that  was  impractical,   a  tolerable  judgment  could  be  formed, 
from  observing  in  the  landlord,  a  possession,  or  an  absence  of 
ears.  .  .  . 


The  Reign  of  Outlaw  and  Rowdy         2 1 1 

The  hero  of  this  "half -horse,  half-alligator"  age 
was  the  renowned  Mike  Fink,  whose  shoulders  were 
broad  and  strong  enough  to  bear  (as  they  ever  will) 
the  blame  for  a  thousand  irregularities  committed  by 
their  owner  as  well  as  many  committed  by  others.  In 
attempting  to  compare  Mike  Fink  and  men  of  this  ilk 
to  the  modem  rivermen  of  the  Steamboat  Age  one 
writer,  Hiram  Kaine,  well  says : 

The  steamboatman  of  the  present  day  [1843]  is  no  more  like 
his  keel-boat  progenitor,  than  the  hand  on  a  fishing-boat  is  like 
a  salt-water  sailor.  We  will  not  undertake  to  say  in  whose 
favor  this  difference  would  operate.  It  is  ver}*  possible  that 
while  much  of  the  blunt  sincerity  and  courage  of  former  times 
has  degenerated  into  ruffianism,  society,  at  least  along  the  rivers, 
has  gained  by  the  safety  of  its  property  from  lawless  pillage. 

Mike  Fink  was  bom  about  1780  in  Allegheny 
County,  Pennsylvania,  and,  as  a  lad,  played  a  part  in 
holding  the  Monongahela  country  against  the  red- 
skins on  the  "Indian  side."  In  Pittsburg  his  reputa- 
tion as  a  hardy  and  brave  bushwacker  and  ranger  was 
the  envy  of  his  comrades.  Thus  it  was  in  the  rough 
school  of  Indian  warfare  that  Mike  Fink  secured  his 
preparation  for  life.  Here,  for  instance,  he  acquired 
the  marv^ellous  accuracy  with  a  musket  which  gave  him 
a  lasting  reputation  as  the  surest  shot  in  the  Ohio  Val- 
ley. Possibly,  too,  it  was  this  form  of  personal  prow- 
ess that  gave  him  the  sobriquet  by  which  he  was  known 
in  that  valley,  the  "Snapping  Turtle";  on  the  Missis- 
sippi he  was  called  "The  Snag."  It  can  easily  be 
seen  that  either  of  these  epithets  might  have  come  into 
existence  because  of  Mike's  love  for,  and  accuracy  with, 
his  rifle.  At  any  rate  at  the  shooting-matches,  which 
were  one  of  the  most  common  forms  of  social  amuse- 
ment,   Mike   was  scratch  man — indeed   he   frequently 


212  The  Ohio  River 

was  promised  one  fifth  of  the  prize  for  not  entering 
the  contest. 

The  broad  bosom  of  the  Ohio  offered  a  wide  field 
of  adventure  for  such  a  specimen  of  manhood,  and 
Mike  became  King  of  the  Valley,  and  what  this  meant 
may  be  inferred  from  an  experience  of  Louis  Phillipe  of 
France  in  this  region.  While  settling  his  score  with  a 
western  landlord  it  is  said  the  future  king  of  France 
became  involved  in  a  dispute.  Being  unwilling  to 
continue  it  Louis  gave  up  the  argument  by  saying  that 
one  destined  to  be  king  of  France  could  not  stoop 
to  bandy  words  with  a  "common  backwoodsman"; 
whereupon  the  party  of  the  second  part  leaped  over 
his  counter  and  kicked  the  representative  of  royalty 
into  the  street  with  the  observation: 

"What  if  you  are?  we  're  all  kings  over  here." 
Mike  Fink  was,  therefore,  a  king  among  kings,  and 
one  to  whom  the  farmers  of  the  valley  in  which  he 
plied  his  trade  were  eager  to  pay  court,  though  this 
did  not  always  excuse  them  from  paying  tribute ;  indeed 
it  would  seem  that  they  did  the  latter  in  inverse  ratio 
as  they  failed  to  do  the  former.  Mike's  nominal 
"trade"  was  to  pilot  keelboats  and  barges  down  the 
Ohio  filled  with  produce,  merchandise,  or  what-not  for 
lower  Ohio  and  Mississippi  markets.  His  livelihood 
was  made  mostly  by  plundering  the  river  farms  of 
crop  and  stock;  he  was,  in  short,  the  Rob  Roy  of  the 
western  rivers.  All  good  citizens  stood  in  awe  of  his 
dare-devil  pilferings,  and  constables  and  sheriffs  were 
glad  that  he  was  a  rover  as  it  offered  them  an  excuse 
for  not  attempting  to  challenge  him  and  his  crew.  And 
while  we  are  describing  Fink  it  must  be  remembered 
we  are  describing  the  old  bargemen  in  general,  though 


The  Reign  of  Outlaw  and  Rowdy  213 

Fink  was  more  than  an  ordinary  type.  Like  the 
Harpes  among  the  outlaws,  so  Fink  among  the  barge- 
men stands  head  and  shoulders  above  the  others  of 
his  class. 

It  is  commonly  said  that  a  man  may  be  known  by 
the  treatment  he  accords  his  wife;  and  if  one  story  of 
Fink  is  true  the  brutality  of  the  man's  nature  stands 
fully  revealed  by  it. 

Several  barges  were  descending  the  Ohio  in  the 
month  of  November,  1820;  among  others  came  that 
belonging  to  or  operated  by  Mike  Fink.  It  contained 
his  wife  and  crew.  The  little  flotilla  tied  up  for  the 
night  just  below  the  mouth  of  the  Muskingum;  and 
just  as  a  landing  was  effected  the  noted  boor  went 
ashore  and  began  kicking  together  a  great  pile  of  dry 
leaves.  When  this  became  nearly  as  high  as  his  head 
he  went  on  board  his  boat,  got  his  rifle,  and  ordered 
his  wife  Peg  in  a  fierce  tone  to  follow  him. 

Both  proceeded  up  the  bank  [continues  the  narrator  of  the 
story]  to  the  pile  of  leaves,  poor  Peg  in  a  terrible  flutter,  as  she 
had  discovered  that  Mike  was  in  no  very  amiable  mood. 

"Get  in  there  and  lie  down,"  was  the  command,  tapped 
off  with  one  of  Mike's  choicest  oaths. 

"Now  Mr.  Fink"  (she  always  mistered  him  when  his  blood 
was  up),  "What  have  I  done!     I  don't  know,  I  'm  sure " 

"Get  in  there  and  lie  down,  or  I  '11  shoot  3''ou,"  with  another 
oath,  and  drawing  his  rifle  up  to  his  shoulder.  Poor  Peg  obeyed 
and  crawled  into  the  leaf  pile,  and  Mike  covered  her  up  with 
the  combustibles.  He  then  took  a  flour  barrel,  and  split  the 
staves  into  fine  pieces  and  lighted  them  at  the  fire  on  the  boat, 
all  the  time  watching  the  leaf  pile,  and  swearing  he  would  shoot 
Peg  if  she  moved.  So  soon  as  his  splinters  began  to  blaze 
he  took  them  into  his  hand  and  deliberately  set  fire,  in  four 
different  places,  to  the  leaves  that  surrounded  his  wife.  In  an 
instant,    the   whole  mass  was  on  fire,  aided  by  a  fresh  wind, 


214  The  Ohio  River 

which  was  blowing  at  the  time,  while  Mike  was  quietly  standing 
by  enjoying  the  fun.  Peg,  through  fear  of  Mike,  stood  it  as 
long  as  she  could;  but  it  soon  became  too  hot,  and  she  made  a 
run  for  the  river,  her  hair  and  clothing  all  on  fire.  In  a  few 
seconds  she  reached  the  water,  and  plunged  in,  rejoiced  to  know 
she  had  escaped  both  fire  and  rifle  so  well. 

"There,"  said  Mike,  "that'll  lam  you  to  be  winkin'  at  them 
fellers  on  the  other  boat.  " 

In  proof  of  Fink's  marksmanship  it  has  been 
averred  that  the  court  records  at  St.  Louis  actually 
show  that  Fink  was  compelled  to  answer  to  the  charge 
of  shooting  off  a  "nigger's"  heel.  Fink,  it  is  said,  was 
on  his  boat  (how  far  from  shore  is  not  stated)  and  the 
colored  gentleman,  who  possessed  one  of  the  long  heels 
peculiar  to  some  African  races,  was  on  shore;  the  dare- 
devil boatman  with  a  single  bullet  removed  the  offend- 
ing part.  Mike's  defence,  according  to  a  writer  in 
the  Western  Monthly  Review  for  July,  1829,  was  that 
"the  fellow  couldn't  wear  a  genteel  boot  and  he 
wanted  to  fix  it  so  that  he  could." 

Yet  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  Fink  or  any  of 

his  type    were  easily  inveigled  to   a  court-house.     Of 

all  Mike's  escapades  none  show  the  rank  audacity  so 

commingled  with  a  boorish  strain  of  humor  that  was 

almost  never  lacking  in  his  deportment  so  conspicuously 

as  the  famous  occasion  on  which  he  attended  court  at 

Louisville.     The  story  is  well  told  in  Ben  Cassaday's 

History  of  Louisville  as  follows: 

In  all  his  little  tricks,  as  Mike  called  them,  he  never  displayed 
any  very  accurate  respect  to  the  laws  either  of  propriety  or 
property,  but  he  was  so  ingenious  in  his  predations  that  it  is 
impossible  not  to  laugh  at  his  crimes.  The  stern  vigor  of 
Justice,  however,  did  not  feel  disposed  to  laugh  at  Mike,  but  on 
the  contrary  offered  a  reward  for  his  capture.  For  a  long  time 
Mike  fought  shy  and  could  not  be  taken,  until  an  old  friend  of 


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The  Reign  of  Oultaw  and  Rowdy         2 1 5 

his,  who  happened  to  be  a  constable,  came  to  his  boat  when 
she  was  moored  at  Louisville  and  represented  to  Mike  the 
poverty  of  his  family;  and,  presuming  on  Mike's  known  kindness 
of  disposition,  urged  him  to  allow  himself  to  be  taken,  and  so 
procure  for  his  friend  the  promised  reward.  He  showed  Mike 
the  many  chances  of  escape  from  conviction,  and  withal  plead 
so  strongly  that  Mike's  kind  heart  at  last  overcame  him  and 
he  consented — but  ttpon  one  condition!  He  felt  at  home  nowhere 
but  in  his  boat  and  among  his  men:  let  them  take  him  and  his 
men  in  the  yawl  and  they  will  go. 

It  was  the  only  hope  of  procuring  his  appearance  at  court 
and  the  constable  consented.  Accordingly  a  long -coupled 
wagon  was  procured,  and  with  oxen  attached  it  went  down 
the  hill  at  Third  Street  for  Mike's  yawl.  The  road,  for  it  was 
not  then  a  street,  was  very  steep  and  very  muddy  at  this  point. 
Regardless  of  this,  however,  the  boat  was  set  upon  the  wagon, 
and  Mike  and  his  men,  with  their  long  poles  ready,  as  if  for  an 
aquatic  excursion,  were  put  aboard,  Mike  in  the  stem.  By 
dint  of  laborious  dragging  the  wagon  had  attained  half  the 
height  of  the  hill,  when  out  shouted  the  stentorian  voice  of  Mike 
calling  to  his  men — Set  Poles!  and  the  end  of  every  long  pole 
was  set  firmly  in  the  thick  mud — Back  Her!  roared  Mike,  and 
down  the  hill  again  went  wagon,  yawl,  men,  and  oxen.  Mike 
had  been  revolving  the  matter  in  his  mind  and  had  concluded 
that  it  was  best  not  to  go;  and  well  knowing  that  each  of  his 
men  was  equal  to  a  moderately  strong  ox,  he  had  at  once  con- 
ceived and  executed  this  retrograde  movement.  Once  at  the  bot- 
tom, another  parley  was  held  and  Mike  was  again  overpowered. 
This  time  they  had  almost  reached  the  top  of  the  hill,  when 
Set  Poles — Back  Her  was  again  ordered  and  executed.  A 
third  attempt,  however,  was  successful  and  Mike  reached  the 
court-house  in  safety;  and  as  his  friend,  the  constable,  had 
endeavored  to  induce  him  to  believe,  he  was  acquitted  for 
lack  of  sufficient  evidence.  Other  indictments,  however, 
were  found  against  him,  but  Mike  preferred  not  to  wait  to  hear 
them  tried;  so,  at  a  given  signal,  he  and  his  men  boarded  their 
craft  again  and  stood  ready  to  weigh  anchor.  The  dread  of 
the  long  poles  in  the  hands  of  Mike's  men  prevented  the  posse 
from  urging   any  serious  remonstrance  against  his  departure. 


2i6  The  Ohio  River 

And  off  they  started  with  poles  "tossed."  As  they  left  the 
court-house  yard  Mike  waved  his  red  bandanna,  which  he  had 
fixed  on  one  of  the  poles,  and  promising  to  "call  again''  was 
bourne  back  to  his  element  and  launched  once  more  upon  the 
waters. 

Fink  was  not  great  in  stature,  lacking  several 
inches  of  the  six-foot  mark;  his  face  was  broad  and 
round  and  his  features  were  not  unpleasant.  His  skin 
was  browned  deep  by  the  sun  and  the  winds;  his  eyes 
were  blue,  inclining  to  gray,  and  very  expressive.  He 
constantly  saw  the  ridiculous  side  of  things,  as  our 
anecdotes  abundantly  prove.  What  he  lacked  of  the 
Hercules  model  in  height  he  made  up  in  brawn,  for  his 
muscles  were  bands  of  tempered  steel.  So  goes  his 
description  among  his  biographers;  of  himself  he  only 
said,  modestly,  "I  can  out-run,  out-hop,  out-jump, 
throw  down,  drag  out,  and  lick  any  man  in  the  country. 
I  'm  a  Sal triver  roarer ;  I  love  the  wimming  and  I  'm 
chock  full  of  fight. ' '  What  "  Peg  "  thought  of  the  next 
to  the  last  declaration  is  not  recorded,  but  no  one  can 
fail  to  imagine  "Little  Billy's"  delight  if  ever  his  star 
brought  him  face  to  face  with  Mike  Fink. 

Such  were  the  outlaws  and  rowdies,  judged  by 
their  legendary  heroes,  of  the  Ohio  Valley;  they  were 
not  the  only  men  in  the  valley  and  far  from  the  best; 
but  they  were  continually  heard  from  and  as  speci- 
mens of  a  civilization  in  transitu  must  forever  be  re- 
membered. In  all  the  wonderful  awakening  of  the 
West  nothing  is  more  interesting  than  to  note 
the  change  of  social  tones.  The  rough  black  day  of  the 
ranger  and  hunter  was  succeeded  by  a  brighter  era, 
and  it  was  a  vast  advance  on  earlier  conditions  when 
Harpe's  head  was  himg  at  the  cross-roads;  and,  for 


The  Reign  of  Outlaw  and  Rowdy  217 

all  the  hollow  mockery  of  it,  it  was  an  epoch-making 
event  for  Mike  Fink's  face  to  be  seen  in  a  court  of 
justice. 

Among  the  notorious  citizens  of  the  early  West 
none  were  more  widely  known  than  "The  Hunters  of 
Kentucky,"  a  name  that  became  current  after  the 
battle  of  New  Orleans  in  the  War  of  181 2,  when  the 
Kentucky  troops  gained  brilliant  laurels.  The  name 
was  coined  by  Samuel  Woodworth,  the  author  of 
The  Old  Oaken  Bucket,  who  celebrated  the  Ken- 
tuckians  in  a  stirring  poem.  The  verses  fell  into  the 
hands  of  an  actor,  N.  M.  Ludlow,  who,  in  1822,  was 
playing  under  the  management  of  James  H.  Caldwell 
in  the  old  French  Theatre  on  Orleans  Street,  New 
Orleans.  The  actor's  brother  found  the  Hnes  in  the 
New  York  Mirror  and  sent  them  to  him;  pleased  by 
them  he  fashioned  them  to  the  music  of  Risk's  song 
of  Miss  Baily,  Love  Laughs  at  Locksmiths.  He  planned 
to  sing  it  first  on  his  own  benefit  night. 

When  the  night  came  [he  left  record  ^]  I  found  the  pit,  or 
parquette,  of  the  theatre  full  of  rivermen — that  is,  keelboat 
and  fiatboat  men.  There  were  very  few  steamboatmen.  These 
men  were  easily  known  by  their  linsey-woolsey  clothing  and 
blanket  coats.  As  soon  as  the  comedy  of  the  night  was  over 
I  dressed  myself  in  a  buckskin  hunting  shirt  and  leggins,  which 
I  had  borrowed  of  a  riverman,  and  with  moccasins  on  my  feet 
and  an  old  slouch  hat  on  my  head  and  a  rifle  on  my  shoulder, 
I  presented  myself  before  the  audience.  I  was  saluted  with 
loud  applause  of  hands  and  feet,  and  a  prolonged  whoop,  or 
howl,  such  as  Indians  give  when  they  are  especially  pleased.  I 
sang  the  first  verse,  and  these  manifestations  of  delight  were 
louder  and  longer  than  before.  As  I  delivered  the  last  five 
words  of  the  fourth  verse  I  took  my  old  hat  off,  threw  it  on  the 
ground,  and  brought  my  rifle  to  the  position  of  taking  aim.     At 

«  Dramatic  Life  as  I  Found  it. 


2i8  The  Ohio  River 

that  instant  came  a  shout  and  an  Indian  yell  from  the  inmates 
of  the  pit,  and  a  tremendous  applause  from  the  other  portions  of 
the  house,  the  whole  lasting  for  nearly  a.  minute  and  .  .  ,  the 
house  "rose  to  meet  me." 
The  song  ran: 

Ye  gentlemen  and  ladies  fair. 

Who  grace  this  famous  city, 
Just  listen,  if  you  've  time  to  spare, 

While  I  rehearse  a  ditty ; 
And  for  this  opportunity 

Conceive  yourself  quite  lucky, 
For  't  is  but  seldom  that  you  see 

A  hunter  from  Kentucky. 

Chorus 
Oh,  Kentucky!     The  hunters  of  Kentucky! 

We  are  a  hardy,  freeborn  race, 

Each  man  to  fear  a  stranger; 
Whate'er  the  game,  we  join  in  chase, 

Despising  toil  and  danger; 
And  if  a  daring  foe  annoys. 

No  matter  what  his  force  is. 
We'll  show  him  that  Kentucky  boys 

Are  Alligator-horses. 

You  've  heard  the  town  of  New  Orleans 

Was  famed  for  wealth  and  beauty ; 
They  've  girls  of  every  hue,  it  seems, 

From  snowy  white  to  sooty — 
So  Pakenham,  he  made  his  brags, 

If  he  in  fight  was  lucky, 
He  'd  have  our  girls  and  cotton  bags, 

In  spite  of  old  Kentucky. 

But  Jackson  he  was  wide  awake. 

And  was  n't  scared  at  trifles. 
For  well  he  knew  what  aim  we  take 

With  our  Kentucky  rifles; 


The  Reign  of  Outlaw  and  Rowdy  219 

He  led  us  down  to  Cypress  Swamp — 

The  ground  was  low  and  mucky — 
There  stood  John  Bull  in  martial  pomp, 

And  here  was  old  Kentucky, 

A  bank  was  raised  to  hide  our  breast, 

Not  that  we  thought  of  dying, 
But  that  we  always  liked  to  rest, 

Unless  the  game  was  flying. 
Behind  it  stood  our  little  force, 

None  wished  it  to  be  greater, 
For  every  man  was  half  a  horse 

And  half  an  alligator. 

They  did  not  let  our  patience  tire. 

For  soon  they  showed  their  faces; 
We  thought  we  would  reserve  our  fire. 

So  snugly  held  our  places, 
And  when  so  near  we  saw  them  wink. 

We  thought  it  time  to  stop  'em, 
And  't  would  have  done  you  good,  I  think, 

To  see  Kentuckians  drop  'em. 

They  found  at  last  't  was  vain  to  fight 

Where  lead  was  all  the  booty. 
And  so  they  wisely  took  to  flight, 

And  left  us  all  the  beauty. 
And  now,  if  danger  e'er  annoys, 

You  all  know  what  our  trade  is: 
Just  send  for  us  Kentucky  boys, 

And  we  '11  protect  the  ladies. 

All  manners  of  severe  personal  contact  were  de- 
vised for  the  delectation  of  the  "alligator-horse"  as 
well  as  for  his  pugnacious  brother  on  shore.  The 
notion  has  become  common  that  it  was  the  riverman, 
exclusively,  who  made  the  Ohio  River  famous  for  the 
fighting  and  gouging  which  horrified  so  many  quiet 
travellers  in  the  West.     This  idea  is  wholly  untrue; 


220  The  Ohio  River 

the  land  lubber  fought  with  equal  relish  and  to  as 
many  different  tunes  as  his  friend  afloat.  On  land,  as 
on  the  river,  a  free  fight  was  the  frolic  which  ensued 
after  a  period  of  hard  work  whenever  some  common 
cause  brought  a  company  together.  Road  building 
was  often  such  a  cause  and  in  one  instance  resulted  in 
a  most  novel  fight — at  least  to  the  eyes  of  an  orderly 
Methodist  clergyman  who  was  present  and  left  record 
of  it  as  follows: 

Shortly  after  we  had  taken  up  our  residence  in  Trimble 
County,  Kentucky,  I  was  called  upon  [writes  Rev.  Mr.  Young] 
to  assist  in  opening  a  road  from  the  place  where  Newcastle 
now  stands,  to  the  mouth  of  Kentucky  River  on  the  Ohio.   .   .  . 

I  met  the  company  early  in  the  morning,  with  my  ax,  three 
days'  provisions,  and  my  knapsack.  Here  I  found  a  Captain, 
with  about  one  hundred  men,  all  prepared  to  labor;  about  as 
jovial  a  company  as  I  ever  saw,  all  good-natured  and  civil. 
This  was  about  the  last  of  November,  1797.  .  .  .  The  company 
worked  hard  all  day,  in  quiet,  and  every  man  obeyed  the  cap- 
tain's orders  punctually.  .  .  .  We  warmed  our  cold  victuals, 
ate  our  suppers,  and  spent  the  evening  in  hearing  the  hunters' 
stories  relative  to  the  bloody  scenes  of  the  Indian  War.  We 
then  heard  some  pretty  fine  singing,  considering  the  circum- 
stances. Thus  far,  well;  but  a  change  began  to  take  place. 
They  became  very  rude,  and  raised  the  war-whoop.  Their 
shrill  shrieks  made  me  tremble.  They  chose  two  captains, 
divided  the  men  into  two  companies,  and  commenced  fighting 
with  the  fire-brands — the  log-heaps  having  burned  down.  The 
only  law  for  their  government  was,  that  no  man  should  throw 
a  brand  without  fire  on  it — so  that  they  might  know  how  to 
dodge.  They  fought,  for  two  or  three  hours,  in  perfect  good 
nature;  till  brands  became  scarce,  and  they  began  to  violate 
the  law.  Some  were  severely  wounded,  blood  began  to  flow 
freely,  and  they  were  in  a  fair  way  of  commencing  a  fight  in 
earnest.  At  this  moment,  the  loud  voice  of  the  captain  rang 
out  above  the  din,  ordering  every  man  to  retire  to  rest.  They 
dropped  their  weapons  of  warfare,  rekindled  the  fires,  and    lay 


A  Case  where  the  Burden  of  Proof  Lies  with  the  Affirmative. 


% 


s^ 


!.&% 


^^^5% 


The  Reign  of  Outlaw  and  Rowdy 


2  ->  r 


down  to  sleep.     We  finished  our  road  according  to  directions, 
and  returned  home  in  health  and  peace. 

A  moderate  volume  would  hardly  contain  the  many 
tales  that  have  come  down  to  us  of  the  fierce  forms  of 
enjoyment  indulged  in  by  the  earliest  Ohio  River 
rowdies.  Let  us  notice  a  few  specimens.  One  night  a 
flatboatman  came  to  anchor  at  Louisville  and  went  out 
with  his  comrades  looking  for  trouble,  in  other  words, 
on  pleasure  bent.  Back  of  the  town,  it  was  soon  dis- 
covered, a  darkey  corn-shucking  was  in  full  swing. 
Here,  too,  a  contest  was  the  order  of  the  evening,  evi- 
dently on  the  theory  that  some  sort  of  a  fight  must  be 
going  on  if  general  enjoyment  was  to  prevail;  the  com 
was  equally  divided  between  the  two  parties  into 
which  the  company  was  divided.  Each  side  chose  a 
captain  who  was  to  lead  in  the  fray,  and  rails  were  laid 
across  the  corn  pile  to  make  the  division  line  clear. 
Then  both  sides  set  to  work  to  do  their  quota  before  the 
other. 

Taking  in  the  situation  at  a  glance  the  river  rowdies 
went  back  to  the  shore  of  the  Ohio  and  filled  the  wallets 
of  their  hunting-shirts  with  stones  and  returned 
stealthily  to  the  scene  of  merry-making.  Dividing  into 
two  groups  they  took  their  stand  in  the  rear  of  the  two 
bands  of  contestants,  and  now  and  then  would  "plug" 
a  darkey  on  the  opposite  side  with  a  stone.  The  missile 
sped  unseen  but  the  effect  was  as  instantaneous  as  it 
was  cruel.  Each  darkey  supposed,  of  course,  that  he 
had  been  hit  by  a  rival  husker  and  as  the  evening  wore 
on  and  both  sides  had  been  about  equally  abused  and 
blood  was  trickling  from  a  dozen  sore  heads,  merri- 
ment gave  way  to  threats  and  threats  in  turn  to  angry 
encounters.      And  all  the   while    the   rowdies  in   the 


222  The  Ohio  River 

background  were  writhing  with  suppressed  mirth  at 
the  ludicrous  spectacle  presented.  They  were  of  course 
unsatisfied  until  the  evening's  merriment  had  been 
utterly  destroyed  and  a  riot  "of  the  largest  size"  had 
been  precipitated. 

Duels  were  common  throughout  the  reign  of  the 
rowdy  in  this  valley ;  one  of  these,  a  duel  with  rocks,  is 
recorded  by  Governor  Reynolds,  of  Illinois,  as  one  of 
the  unique  forms  of  brutality  of  a  brutal  age.  It  was 
fought  in  the  mining  district  of  Illinois,  between  one 
Thomas  Higgins  and  an  unknown  champion. 

The  same  size  and  number  of  rocks  [writes  Reynolds]  were 
selected  by  their  seconds,  and  the  parties  placed  at  their  posts, 
ten  yards  apart.  The  combatants  were  to  throw  the  rocks  at 
each  other  at  the  time  mentioned  by  the  seconds.  The  rocks 
were  placed  in  a  pile,  so  that  the  parties  could  use  them  as  they 
pleased.  Higgins  was  so  strong,  courageous,  and  expert  in 
throwing  rocks  that  his  opponent  was  forced  to  flee  to  save  his 
life.  This  was  a  kind  medium  duel  between  the  murderous 
pistol  and  the  brutal  pugilation,  but  still  highly  condemnable 
by  refined  civilization  and  Christianity. 

Governor  Reynold's  memoirs  of  early  life  in  Illinois 
preserve  many  interesting  stories  of  the  pranks  and 
tricks  of  pioneer  days. 

It  entered  then  [he  writes]  into  the  hearts  of  the  people  to 
enjoy  these  pranks  with  more  pleasure  than  the  money-making 
people  do  of  the  present  day.  An  individual  [Wilham  Lemen] 
now  a  resident  of  Monroe  County,  only  a  few  miles  distant 
from  the  place  where  he  was  born,  of  an  excellent  and  respectable 
family,  and  he  himself  a  man  of  rare  and  good  talents  of  this 
order,  has  performed,  with  ingenuity  and  adroitness,  more 
tricks  and  pranks  than  would  fill  a  volume.  In  his  neighbor- 
hood, at  the  house  of  Andrew  Kinney,  was  a  night-meeting, 
and  the  congregation  were  zealous  and  devout.     This  rehgiovis 


The  Reign  of  Outlaw  and  Rowdy         223 

meeting  was  held  in  a  small  log -cabin,  with  only  one  window. 
When  the  congregation  were  all  down  on  their  knees  devoutly 
in  prayer,  and  their  heads  bowed  down,  this  singular  and  tal- 
ented individual,  Lemen,  threw  a  small  calf  through  the  window 
into  the  house.  The  calf  was  kept  in  a  pen  behind  the  house, 
and  when  it  was  thrown  in  through  the  window,  it  knocked  the 
only  candle  down,  which  was  burning  on  the  table  under  the 
window.  The  calf  bawled  out  in  the  darkness  in  the  midst 
of  the  congregation.  The  females  screamed  out,  and  were 
terrified  nearly  to  death,  as  they  supposed  the  "Old  Boy"  had 
jumped  in  through  the  window  to  seize  them  for  their  sins. 
After  much  confusion  and  shouting,  the  candle  was  again  lit, 
and  behold,  there  stood  the  calf.  In  pioneer-times  in  Illinois, 
the  people  were  not  so  ambitious  to  acquire  wealth  as  they 
are  at  this  day,  and  enjoyed  themselves  more  in  such  amuse- 
ments [!]  as  above  narrated.  .  .  . 

Intoxicants  were  responsible  for  a  great  proportion 
of  the  rowdyism  in  the  Ohio  Valley  as  has  been  true 
everywhere;  among  the  boatmen  drinking  was  very 
common  and  the  results  were  marked  and  remarked. 
Nor  were  rivermen  alone  given  to  much  imbibing;  the 
westerner  was  proverbially  thirsty.  The  story  goes 
that  the  thirst  of  a  western  editor  gave  rise  to  the 
expression  common  in  Massachusetts — "Booked  for 
Greenfield."  The  editor  was  stopping  at  the  stage- 
house  in  Northampton  and 

after  a  reasonable  time  he  became  dry,  and  called  for  a  glass 
of  brandy.  "No,"  says  the  landlord,  "we  have  no  license  to 
sell  spirits — we  don't  keep  the  article."  The  editor  visited 
the  other  public  houses — looked  into  the  groceries  and  cellars, 
made  close  inquiries  but  found  them  tetotallers.  He  returned 
to  the  stage-house  with  a  long  face — "Landlord,"  says  he, 
"tell  me  the  nearest  place  where  I  can  get  a  glass  of  brandy, 
for  I  'm  too  dry  to  stay  here  any  longer."  "I  guess  you  can  get- 
it  at  Greenfield,  for  they  grant  licenses  there,  and  it  is  said  they 
sell   spirits."     "How   far   is   it?"     "Twenty   miles."     "Whaf 


224  The  Ohio  River 

time  does  the  stage  start?"     "Twelve  o'clock  at  night."     "Well, 
say,  Landlord,  book  me  for  Greenfield." 

Dr.  Aldrich's  five  reasons  for  drinking  whiskey  were 
unanimously  adopted  by  Ohio  rivermen: 

Whiskey,  a  friend,  or  being  dry, 
Or,  lest  we  should  be,  by  and  by, 
Or,  any  other  reason  why. 

Yet  who  could  not  find  five,  or  any  mutiple  of 
five,  reasons  for  imbibing  when  the  beverages  bore 
such  enchanting  names  as  "Clay  and  Huysen,"  "Polk 
and  Dallas,"  "Race  Horse,"  "Ching  Ching,"  "Tog," 
"Rappee,"  "Tip  and  Ty,"  "Fiscal  Agent,"  "T.  0.  U.," 
"Tippena  Pecco,"  "Moral  Suasion,"  "Vox  Populi," 
"Ne  Plus  Ultra,"  "Shambro,"  "Pig  and  Whistle," 
"Silver  Top,"  "Poor  Man's  Punco,"  "Split  Ticket," 
"Deacon,"  "Exchange,"  "Stone  Wall,"  "Virginia 
Fence, "  "  Floater, "  and  "  Shifter  ' '  ?  The  chief  devotees 
of  these  "fancy  drinks" — the  tavern  loafers — were  the 
boors  and  rowdies  of  most  western  towns,  every  whit 
as  unmannerly  as  those  routed  out  of  their  comfortable 
seats  by  the  fire  by  Benjamin  Franklin,  who,  in  a  loud 
voice,  ordered  a  peck  of  oysters  for  his  horse ;  the  mono- 
polizers of  the  fire-place  wandered  away  to  witness  the 
novel  sight  of  a  horse  eating  oysters,  while  the  Doctor 
chose  a  good  chair  and  began  roasting  his  oysters.  It 
is  said  that  a  similar  ruse  was  emplo3^ed  in  a  western 
grocery  store — whether  on  the  Ohio  River  it  is  not 
stated — ^by  a  recruiting  captain.  The  stove  was  com- 
pletely surrounded  by  loafers  who  thought  not  of 
moving  to  make  room  for  the  newcomer.  The  captain 
knew  the  place,  and  going  behind  the  counter  he  re- 
turned with  a  keg  marked  "powder."     Opening  the 


The  Reign  of  Outlaw  and  Rowdy         225 

stove  door  he  said,  "Gentlemen,  it's  my  opinion  that 
we  've  lived  long  enough,"  and  threw  in  the  keg.  There 
was  no  lack  of  room  near  the  stove  immediately  after 
and  the  captain  was  free  to  choose  his  seat. 

The  old-time  passion  of  politics  often  took  the 
form  of  pranks  that  were  sometimes  the  high-water 
mark  of  rowdyism.  The  axle  of  Van  Bnren's  coach 
was  sawed  to  the  breaking-point  while  travelling  on 
the  Cumberland  Road ;  it  broke  at  the  first  hill,  and  the 
man  who  had  vetoed  a  Cumberland  Road  bill  secured 
some  first-hand  information  concerning  the  road's 
condition  before  he  reached  the  next  town  on  foot. 
General  Jackson,  whose  famous  veto  of  the  Maysville 
Road  bill  marked  the  turning-point  in  our  history  of 
internal  improvements,  had  occasion  to  journey  over 
the  Maysville  Pike.  Boys  altered  the  signs  on  the 
guide-post  and  the  General  enjoyed  a  pleasant  ride — 
to  Mount  Sterling. 


Chapter  X 

From  Keelboat  to  Schooner 

A  SLIGHT  description  of  the  craft  sailed  by  the 
fighting  Virginians  on  the  Ohio  has  been  given, 
but  what  pen  can  describe  adequately  the  vast 
pageant  enacted  on  that  river  in  the  years  of 
the  great  emigration  as  thousands  of  canoes,  pirogues, 
skiffs,  dugouts,  galleys,  arks,  keelboats,  fiatboats, 
"broadhoms,"  "sneak  boxes,"  and  rafts  bore  west- 
ward their  marvellous  cargoes  ?  A  nation's  hope  floated 
westward  on  the  Ohioj  for  it  must  be  admitted  on  every 
hand  that  if  America  could  not  expand — if  the  great 
West  was  forever  to  float  alien  flags — the  flag  that 
floated  along  the  seaboard  was  to  live  forever  in  peril. 
The  Virginians  had  conquered  the  West,  but  the  truer 
conquerors  came  in  canoe  and  pirogue,  in  the  keel- 
boat  and  ' '  broadhom. ' '  The  bugler's  horn  had  sounded 
"advance"  and  "retreat"  along  all  the  rivers  of  the 
West  wherever  Clark  and  Bowman,  Lewis  and  Craw- 
ford, St.  Clair,  Harmar,  and  Wayne  had  led  their  sol- 
diers. Here,  too,  the  bugles  of  England  and  France 
and  Spain  had  echoed  all  in  vain ;  but  now  came  another 
horn  and  its  mellow  music  ringing  clear  along  those 
self -same  rivers  told  of  another  and  a  greater  conquest. 
And  this  was  the  boatman's  horn;  where  it  sounded 
cabins  and  clearings  appeared,  hearthstones  glowed, 

and  a  new  nation  arose. 

226 


OS 
O 

o 


o 


t/3 


-1 


'^-v     -<^, 

.^,-,^.. 


From  Keelboat  to  Schooner  227 

The  growth  of  this  nation  is  to  be  noticed  in  the 
evolution  of  the  vehicles  which  bore  its  freight  and 
coninierce.     This  was  true  on  land  and  on  the  water. 
But  the  change  in  craft  was  more  rapid  than  the  change 
in  vehicles,  a  fact  explained  by  the  earlier  application 
of  steam  on  water  than  on  land.     The  Indian  pony 
and  the  white  man's  packhorse  carried  the  first  packs 
of   peltry    and   merchandise   on    the   narrow   frontier 
trails ;  on  the  streams  the  lithe  canoes  were  the  burden- 
bearers,  though  capable  of  carrying  far  greater  loads 
than  the  floundering  pony.    These  canoes  differed  not 
greatly  from  the  similar  craft  of  our  own  day  though 
it  is  only  in  the  far  North  that  one  may  see  the  counter- 
part of  such  craft  as  bore  C^loron's  leaden  plates  and 
glittering  soldiery  down  the  Allegheny  and   Ohio  a 
century   and   a   half  ago.     Ranging  from  diminutive 
size  to  ponderous  boats  seventy  and  eighty  feet  in 
length,  the   bark   canoe  sped  swiftly,  driven  by  one 
or   twenty   paddles,    as    the   case   might   be,    up   and 
down  the  Ohio  and  its  tributaries.     To  find  a  proper 
tree,  to  strip  it  of  its  covering,  to  fashion  this  deftly 
to  the  desired  shape,  to  patch  and  caulk  and  pitch,  is 
a  lost  art  the  early  woodsman  learned  of  his  red-skinned 
tutor.     It  is  surprising  in  how  short  a  space  of  time — ■ 
a  day  and  less — such  a  boat  could  be  fashioned  and 
launched.     They  were  frail,  easily  torn  by  the  rocks 
at  the  "riffles,"  and  pierced  instantly  by  the  myriad 
snags  and  "planters"  that  filled  the  rivers.     However 
they  often  lasted  several  seasons,  for  the  Indians  buried 
canoes  in  the  sand  over  winter  and  dug  them  out  in  the 
spring. 

Yet  if  the  real  truth  were  known  it  would  doubtless 
appear  that  there  has  been  great  exaggeration  in  the 


228  The  Ohio  River 

matter  of  the  trade  of  the  ancient  canoes  both  on  river 
and  lake,  with  the  exception  of  that  on  the  Ottawa  and 
St.  Lawrence  in  the  North.  For  special  expeditions  of 
warring  and  trading  parties  great  canoes  were  made  and 
used  for  temporary  ends;  but  for  many  months  the 
Ohio  was  gorged  with  ice  and  bursting  with  flood-tides ; 
in  midsummer  it  ran  dry  here,  and  dangerously  low 
there,  and  on  many  days  the  "River  of  Many  White 
Caps"  was  unnavigable  for  these  light  craft.  In  the 
face  of  all  this  there  is  no  question  that  land  routes, 
rough  and  narrow  as  they  were,  were  more  sought  than 
has  been  believed,  and  the  river  courses  proportion- 
ately less. 

The  canoe  plied  up  and  down  all  streams  and  was 
immediately  succeeded  by  the  long,  narrow  keelboat, 
which  also  plied  up  and  down  the  rivers  carrying  loads 
as  great  or  greater  than  any  canoe.  This  craft  was 
made  of  strong  planks  and  boards  and  therefore  did 
not  appear  on  the  Ohio  in  great  numbers  until  saw- 
mills on  the  Allegheny  and  Monongahela  were  built. 
These  came  shortly  after  the  close  of  the  Revolution. 
The  average  keelboat  was  about  twelve  feet  in  width 
and  thirty  feet  in  length.  The  body  of  the  boat  was 
covered,  protecting  the  cargo  from  rain,  and  from 
fifteen  to  forty  tons  of  freight  could  be  carried  in  these 
protected  holds.  On  either  side  of  the  boat  were 
narrow  platforms  called  "running-boards."  The  keel- 
boat crew  numbered  anywhere  from  six  to  eighteen 
men,  commanded  by  a  captain.  Advancing  to  the 
prow  the  crew,  being  divided  equally  on  either  side, 
"set"  their  long  sharply  shod  "poles"  on  the  bottom 
of  the  river  or  any  projection  that  offered,  and,  pushing 
the  pole  with  shoulders  placed  in  the  "socket,  "  walked 


From  Keelboat  to  Schooner  229 

slowly  from  prow  to  stem.  Thus  the  heavy  boat  was 
propelled  its  own  length.  At  the  cry  of  "lift"  they 
returned  to  the  prow  and  repeated  the  operation  in 
unison  at  the  command  "set."  Where  the  river's 
current  was  swift  only  one  man  on  a  side  could  "lift"; 
hurrying  by  his  fellows  to  the  prow  again  he  "set"  his 
pole  and  in  passing  to  the  stem  kept  well  to  the  edge 
of  the  running-board  to  make  room  for  the  next  in 
turn  to  pass  him.  The  slightest  error  in  swift  rapids 
might  result  in  great  disaster  if  the  current  should 
swing  the  boat  broadside  upon  the  encroaching  rocks. 
A  boatman  who  could  not  say  that  he  had  never 
allowed  his  boat  to  ' '  swing, ' '  or  that  he  had  never  been 
compelled  to  backwater  in  a  "chute,  "  lost  caste  among 
his  fellows.  In  the  larger  and  deeper  streams  it  was 
necessary  for  the  keelboats  to  hug  the  shores  where 
the  water  was  shallow  or  where  the  bushes  could  be 
seized  or  projecting  logs  on  shore  could  be  made  use  of. 
This  was  called  "  bushwacking "  among  keelboatmen. 
In  ascending  large  streams  this  matter  of  holding  to  the 
shores  was  of  prime  importance. 

The  canoe  and  keelboat  were  both  up  and  down 
river  craft — an  important  similarity.  The  keelboat  of 
moderate  dimensions  and  draught  could  ascend  prac- 
tically all  of  the  important  tributaries  of  the  Ohio,  and  in 
earliest  times  became  of  greatest  value  in  carrying  salt 
from  the  licks  and  kilns  to  the  early  settlements.  The 
cry  of  the  keelboat  captains  rang  out  through  the  little 
valleys  of  the  West  in  the  day  when  their  crafts  were 
the  only  means  of  water  commerce  between  the  interior 
and  the  Ohio  River  settlements.  Carrying  out  our 
comparison  a  step  further  the  keels  were  to  the  river- 
ways  what  the  first  clumsy  carts  were  on  the  land 


230  The  Ohio  River 

routes;  these  carried,  back  and  forth,  greater  loads  than 
the  packhorses,  and  the  keelboats,  in  turn,  carried 
greater  loads  than  the  old  canoes  and  with  better 
protection. 

The  first  line  of  packet  boats  in  ,the  ordinary  sense 
were  galley  keelboats  that  plied  between  Cincinnati 
and  Pittsburg  from  November,  1 793,  onward.  This  line 
was  established  by  one  Jacob  Myers,  who  was  "in- 
fluenced by  a  love  of  philanthropy  and  desire  of  being 
serviceable  to  the  public."  Yet  it  was  not  a  business 
to  be  engaged  in  merely  for  one's  "health,"  as  the 
following  sentence  from  the  proprietor's  advertise- 
ment makes  clear: 

No  danger  need  be  apprehended  from  the  enemy,  as  every 
person  on  board  will  be  under  cover,  made  proof  against  rifle 
or  musquet  balls,  and  port  holes  for  firing  out  of.  Each  boat 
is  armed  with  six  pieces  carrying  a  pound  ball;  also  a  number 
of  good  muskets,  and  amply  supplied  with  ammunition,  strongly 
manned  with  choice  hands,  and  the  masters  of  approved  know- 
ledge. A  separate  cabin  is  partitioned  off  for  accommodating 
ladies  on  their  passage;  conveniences  are  constructed  so  as  to 
render  landing  unnecessary,  as  it  might,  at  times,  be  attended 
with  danger.  Rules  and  regulations  for  maintaining  order  and 
for  the  good  management  of  the  boats,  and  tables  of  the  rates 
of  freightage,  passage,  and  carrying  of  letters;  also,  of  the 
exact  time  of  arrival  and  departure  at  all  way  places,  may  be 
seen  on  the  boat  and  at  the  printing  office  in  Cincinnati.  Pas- 
sengers supplied  with  provisions  and  liquors,  of  first  quality, 
at  most  reasonable  rates  possible.  Persons  may  work  their 
passage.  An  office  for  insuring  at  moderate  rates  the  property 
carried,  will  be  kept  at  Cincinnati,  Limestone  [Maysville,  Ky.], 
and  Pittsburg. 

In  the  pools  these  boats  were,  no  doubt,  propelled  by 
oars;  on  the  bars  and  riffles  the  poles  were  used;  the 
boat  was,    therefore,    a  combination  keel-  and  galley- 


I 


o 
to 


t/I 


5-^ 


t/3  C 


p-  t^ 


O 


:C 


o.. 


\.  % 


■*K      * 


'O, 


From  Keelboat  to  Schooner  231 

boat.  The  keel  was  the  important  distinction. 
Throughout  the  era  of  mihtary  conquest  the  keelboat 
played  its  part,  hewed  timbers  going  into  its  make-up. 
The  Willing  a  so-called  "  galley-batteau "  which 
played  a  part  in  Clark's  conquest  of  Vincennes,  was  this 
type  of  a  boat,  as  were  the  keelboats  used  by  Captain 
Henry  Bird  in  his  invasion  of  Kentucky  in  1780.  The 
first  early  trading  was,  of  course,  done  in  the  keelboats. 
The  first  trading  voyage  past  the  "Falls  of  the  Ohio" 
(Louisville)  is  said  to  have  been  that  of  Colonel  Richard 
Taylor  and  Hancock  Taylor,  in  1769,  to  the  Yazoo 
River.  The  next  was  that  of  Captain  William  Linn  and 
George  Gibson  to  New  Orleans  for  military  stores. 
Captain  Rogers,  remembered  for  his  savage  battle  on 
the  Ohio,  had  been  returning  with  keelboats  from  the 
South.  In  1782-83  Messrs.  Tardiveau  and  Honore  left 
Brownsville,  Pa.,  beginning  a  keelboat  trade  to  New 
Orleans,  which  they  transferred  later  to  Louisville  and 
extended  later  to  the  Spanish  and  French  settlements 
of  the  Mississippi  and  Illinois. 

But  the  broad-axe  and  the  saw-mill  gave  more  to  the 
world  than  the  keelboat,  for  in  a  moment  the  flood-tides 
of  pioneers  descended  on  the  upper  Ohio,  and  every 
craft  known  to  mankind,  save  only  the  steamboat,  was 
soon  drifting  with  the  river's  tides  south  and  west. 
The  distinction  of  the  flatboat  and  the  brig,  which 
now  appeared,  from  the  craft  which  had  preceded 
them  lay  in  the  significant  fact  that  these  later  boats 
were,  as  a  class,  down-river  boats  only — they  journeyed 
but  one  way;  these  were  the  home-seeker's  boats  and 
they  never  returned.  Barges  and  flatboats  were  built 
during  Revolutionary  times,  but  as  the  roads  that 
were  built  across  the  Alleghenies  for  armies  became 


232  The  Ohio  River 

overgrown  and  impassable  for  travellers  in  two  or  three 
years'  time  because  unused,  so  the  first  barges  and  flats 
were  allowed  to  rot  and  sink  as  there  were  none  to  use 
them.  It  is  impossible  (as  well  as  contrary  to  the 
spirit  of  the  time)  to  attempt  to  lay  any  hard  and  fast 
chronological  order  for  the  appearance  of  the  first 
important  craft  on  western  waters;  necessity  was  the 
only  law  that  reigned  and  men  went  and  came  the  best 
they  could.  But  it  is  safe  to  lay  down  the  general 
principle  that  the  keelboat — after  the  canoe  and  ' '  dug- 
out"— was  the  first  boat  to  ply  the  Ohio,  and  that  the 
barge  and  flatboat  came  with  the  rush  of  the  pioneers 
over  the  mountains.  As  a  class  these  boats  went  down 
but  never  came  back.  The  exception  to  this  will  be 
noted  later. 

Such  was  the  great  variation  in  the  styles  of  flat- 
boat  and  barge  that  it  is  possible  to  say  that  the  only 
similarity  was  in  the  flat  bottom  which  all  such  boats 
possessed.  Probably  every  known  mathematical  figure 
found  its  counterpart  in  this  numberless  flotilla  of  flat- 
boats  that  descended  the  Ohio  in  the  last  two  decades 
of  the  older  century  and  the  first  two  decades  of  the 
nineteenth.  Flatboats  were  really  but  a  step  in  ad- 
vance of  the  old-time  raft — ^a  raft  for  instance  such  as 
Washington  and  Gist  hewed  on  the  bleak  shores  of  the 
Allegheny  on  the  return  from  the  French  fort  near  Lake 
Erie  in  1752;  in  earliest  days  such  crafts  were  the  com- 
mon freight  "boats"  of  the  West.  The  flatboat  best 
known  to  the  pioneers  was  merely  a  rectangular  raft 
with  sides  two  or  three  feet  high.  The  poorer  sort  of 
"flat"  had  no  covering,  but  a  sort  of  a  shed  at  the  rear 
offered  protection  to  the  emigrant's  cattle  and  horses 
while  a  little  cabin  up  forward  housed  himself  and 


From  Keelboat  to  Schooner  233 

family.  Tents  and  awnings  often  did  service  as  shelter 
for  both  men  and  beasts.  The  more  substantial — 
and  more  costly — flats  had  strong  bulwarks  and  were 
wholly  or  partly  covered. 

The  amount  of  covered  space  seems  to  have  varied 
with  the  destination  of  each  boat;  those  destined  for 
Kentucky  ports  were  half-covered  and  known  as 
"Kentucky  boats."  Those  intended  for  Mississippi 
ports  were  often  wholly  roofed  over  and  known  as 
"New  Orleans  boats."  But  these  were  of  a  later  day. 
The  square-toed  pioneer  flatboat  was  only  partially 
covered,  but  every  inch  of  sawed  timber  in  it  was  of 
great  value  down  the  river  where  saw-mills  were  few 
and  far  between.  Usually  the  flatboat,  built  in  one  of 
the  busy  boat-yards  on  the  Monongahela  such  as  those  at 
Brownsville,  Elizabeth,  or  Morganstown,  became  worth 
its  weight  in  salt  in  the  low  country.  Thousands  of 
pioneer  cabins  in  the  Ohio  Valley  were  made  from  the 
timbers  of  the  flatboats  of  their  owners.  The  best  of 
these  made  fine  cabins  with  little  change.  It  is  averred 
that  the  first  schoolhouse  in  Cincinnati  was  made  out 
of  a  flatboat ;  and  it  is  sure  the  first  newspaper  printed 
in  Kentucky  was  "set  up"  in  a  flatboat  descending 
the  Ohio  to  Limestone  (Maysville).  The  "gunnels" 
of  more  than  one  solid  flatboat  were  used  in  infant 
Cincinnati  as  the  foundations  for  houses;  and  as  we 
note  elsewhere  was  true  in  Louisville,  so  at  many 
points  early  stores  were  in  moored  flatboats.  And  so. 
architecturally,  the  ancient  "flat"  varied,  for  instance, 
as  much  as  the  Ohio  River  house-boats  do  to-day  from 
comfortable  and  well-finished  cabins  to  the  merest 
hulks  that  will  float. 

A  full-rigged   flatboat  of  the  better  class  was  pro- 


234  The  Ohio  River 

vided  with  four  oars  by  which  it  was  kept  in  the  current 
of  the  river  or  rowed  ashore.  The  oars  on  either  side 
were  ' '  sweeps " ;  a  long  oar  at  the  stem  served  as  a 
rudder,  and  a  shorter  oar  in  front,  known  as  the 
"gouger, "  also  served  as  a  steering  oar;  both  of  these 
oars  helped  to  keep  the  "flat"  in  the  current,  which  was 
the  usual  means  of  locomotion,  though  sails  were  used 
to  some  extent,  as  well  as  the  poles  of  keelboatmen 
The  difficulties  of  navigation  centred  in  the  logs  and 
reefs  in  the  river  and  the  bars  at  the  riffles.  Often  the 
flatboat  had  to  be  "warped"  over  the  sand-bars;  this 
consisted  of  attaching  a  hawser  to  a  stump  or  tree  on 
shore  and  winding  it  up  on  a  reel  or  wheel  on  board,  an 
operation  not  unlike  "cordelling"  of  later  days. 

The  history  of  one  of  the  early  flatboat  yards,  that 
at  Elizabeth,  Pa.,  has  been  carefully  preserved  and  it 
contains  points  of  genuine  interest.^  An  advertisement 
of  this  yard  in  the  Pennsylvania  Journal  of  Philadelphia, 
February  13,  1788,  reads: 

Boats  of  every  dimension  may  be  had  at  Elizabeth-Town, 
in  the  course  of  next  spring  and  summer,  at  as  short  notice, 
and  on  as  reasonable  terms  as  at  any  place  on  said  river.  The 
situation  of  the  town  is  attended  with  this  singular  advantage, 
that  there  is  water  sufficient  for  boats  to  go  down  from  it  into 
the  Ohio  at  any  season  of  the  year.  It  possesses  likewise 
another  advantage  from  its  being  surrounded  by  a  rich  and 
thick  settled  country,  where  provisions  of  all  kinds  may  be  had 
at  a  very  cheap  rate,  particularly  flour,  there  being  no  less  than 
six  grist  mills  within  the  circumference  of  three  or  four  miles. 

In  the  same  newspaper  of  August  20,  1788,  appears 

the  following  advertisement: 

BOATS  FOR  SALE. 
At  Elizabeth,  Town  on  the  Monongahela,  may  now  be  had. 
Kentucky  Boats  of  different  dimensions;   where  also  for  the 

>  Elizabeth  Herald,  Boat  Building  Centennial  Edition,  June  7,  1900. 


From  Keelboat  to  Schooner  235 

future,  Boats  of  every  construction  and  size  may  be  had,  at  as 
low  price  as  any  on  these  waters;  To  prevent  the  detention  of 
travellers,  so  frequent  on  the  river  for  want  of  boats,  the  pro- 
prietor has  erected  a  Boat  Yard  on  the  premises,  where  timber 
is  plenty,  and  four  of  the  best  Boat  Builders  from  Philadelphia 
are  constantly  employed. 

The  town  is  situated  on  the  east  side  of  the  Monongahela, 
between  Red  Stone  Old  Fort  [Brownsville,  Pa.]  and  Pittsburg, 
about  an  equal  distance  from  each,  and  is  six  miles  above  the 
mouth  of  the  Yough:  the  place  where  it  stands  was  formerly 
called  the  New-Store.  The  rout  to  it  from  Bedford,  is  by 
Bonnet's  tavern,  from  thence  the  Glade  Road  to  Cherry's  mill, 
to  Budd's  ferry  on  Yough,  thence  to  Captain  Peterson's  and 
from  thence  a  good  road  to  Elizabeth  Town,  where  travellers 
may  be  accommodated  with  houses  to  deposit  their  goods  in, 
and  be  supplied  with  provisions  of  every  kind  at  a  reasonable 
price.  Another  singular  advantage  attending  this  place  is, 
that  boats  are  never  detained  for  want  of  water,  having  always 
enough  to  go  into  the  Ohio,  which  is  but  twenty  miles  distant. 

Those  who  would  wish  to  be  supplied  as  above  may  know 
the  terms  by  applying  to 

Stephen  Bayard,  Proprietor,  On  the  Premises. 

It  is  impossible  to  guess  when  the  first  fiatboat 
containing  an  emigre  s  family  passed  down  the  Ohio, 
but  if  the  truth  were  known  it  was  probably  not  long 
after  Mary  Ingles  and  her  Dutch  woman  fled  homeward 
from  their  Shawanese  captors.  The  date  of  the  first 
trip  of  a  fiatboat  engaged  in  trade  is  fairly  well  au- 
thenticated ;  for  the  fiatboat  was  also  the  boat  which 
supplied  all  the  early  river  settlements  with  the  manu- 
factures and  products  of  the  "Monongahela  country." 
It  was  called  "the  lower  trade"  and  hundreds  of  enter- 
prising men  bought  a  "fiat"  and  a  "stock"  and  set 
afioat  to  seek  their  fortunes.  Captain  Jacob  Yoder 
is  said  to  have  taken  the  first  fiatboat  to  New  Orleans 
in  1782.     The  late  Captain  Joseph  Pierce  of  Cincin- 


236  The  Ohio  River 

nati  erected  over  Yoder's  grave  the  first  iron  tablet 
cast  west  of  the  Alleghenies  and  it  contained  this 
inscription : 

Jacob  Yoder  was  born  at  Reading,  Pennsylvania,  August  11, 
1758;  and  was  a  soldier  of  the  Revolutionary  army  in  1777  and 
1778.  He  emigrated  to  the  West  in  1780;  and  in  May,  1782, 
from  Fort  Redstone,  Brownsville,  Pa.,  on  the  Monongahela 
river,  in  the  First  Flat  Boat  that  ever  descended  the  Mississippi 
river,  he  landed  in  New  Orleans,  with  a  cargo  of  produce.  He 
died  April  7,  1832,  at  his  farm  in  Spencer  County,  Kentucky, 
and  lies  here  interred  beneath  this  tablet. 

The  staple  article  of  sale  along  the  river  that  never 
failed  of  a  market,  seemingly,  was  liquor.  This,  of 
course,  agrees  with  the  common  legend  of  the  wide- 
spread habit  of  drinking  in  early  days,  and  it  is  not  out  of 
order  to  say  here  that  there  was  more  or  less  reason  in 
this  practice.  The  first  white  men  in  the  West  were 
subject  to  the  same  physical  conditions  as  the  red 
man.  Living  in  the  continual  damp  and  shade  of  the 
primeval  forest,  sleeping  in  part  on  the  ground  or  near 
it,  exposed  to  rain  and  cold  as  no  succeeding  generation 
has  been  exposed,  the  western  pioneer  became  remark- 
ably phlegmatic ;  the  blood  was  cold  and  slow  and  the 
animal  spirits  consequently  in  an  habitual  state  of  de- 
pression bordering  on  melancholy.  The  influence  of 
strong  drink  on  these  men,  as  on  the  savages  who 
craved  it  so  eagerly,  was  acceptable  and  exceedingly 
exhilarating.^ 

'  The  Rev.  David  McClure  in  his  Diary  states:  "An  aged  physician 
of  my  acquaintance,  who  Hved  in  Connecticut,  and  died  many  years  ago, 
in  younger  life,  went  with  a  party  of  Indian  hunters,  far  northward  on  a 
hunting  expedition,  and  fared  in  all  respects,  in  the  excursion,  as  the 
Indians;  on  his  return  home  he  felt  an  unsatiable  thirst  for  rum,  and 
drank  such  a  quantity  as  would  at  another  time  have  laid  him  by,  yet 
without  any  unfavorable  effects.  The  old  gentleman  used  to  relate  the 
adventure,  and  add  that  he  could  never  blame  an  Indian  for  loving  rum. '- 
fpp.  70,  71.) 


1> 
> 

f— 

o 


<u 


From  Keelboat  to  Schooner  237 

Of  one  flatboatman,  Benjamin  F.  Beazell,  we  read : 
"For  himself  he  built  a  trade  boat— loaded  it  with  a 
variety  of  goods  as  flour,  cherry  bounce  and  boiled 
cider.  For  the  latter  he  paid  three  dollars  per  barrel 
and  sold  it  for  five  dollars  making  a  nice  profit.  He  sold 
his  whole  cargo  on  the  way  and  at  Cincinnati,  and 
walked  home  to  Brownsville,  Pa.,  carrying  the  pro- 
ceeds." A  letter  of  an  old  fiatboat  merchant,  John 
Bower,  to  his  wife  living  at  Fredericktown,  Pa.,  lies 
before  me  postmarked  at  GallipoHs,  Ohio,  December 
20,  1 81 8.  Its  humorous  note  gives  an  added  interest 
to  the  general  picture  of  actual  experience  which  it. 
graphically  draws: 

Flat  Boat  in  the  mouth  of  Big  Kenaway  Point  Pleasant  300 
Miles  Below  Pittsburg  Sunday  Dec.  20  1818. 

I  expect  your  waters  [rivers]  are  closed  with  ice  you  will  won- 
der how  it  is  with  us — I  will  therefore  inform  you  that  we  are  here 
Blocked  up  untill  the  weather  Changes — we  are  however  in  good 
health  and  have  sold  some  whiskey  &  expect  to  sell  more  as 
there  was  no  whiskey  on  this  river  before  we  landed  ours  but 
this  river  (Kenaway)  is  frozen  over  in  twenty-four  hours  from 
the  time  it  began  to  freeze,  the  Ohio  runs  thick  with  ice  so 
that  we  know  not  how  long  we  shall  stay  here. 

I  think  Jonas  will  have  a  second  time  to  go  down  this  river 
Before  he  learns  every  manouvre  of  Boating — that  is  Before  he 
learns  not  to  scratch  the  Shore  fifteen  or  twenty  miles  before  he 
can  get  the  boat  Stopped  and  then  to  run  night  and  day  in  the 
most  eminent  danger  and  the  weather  most  excessive  Cold — • 
when  the  Boats  will  run  above  100  miles  in  24  hours  and  the 
nights  so  dark  that  the  Shores  Cannot  be  known  from  the  water 
any  other  way  than  by  throwing  Stone  or  Coal  out  from  the 
sides  and  hearing  where  they  light — when  his  rest  cannot  exceed 
4  hours  out  of  24,  and  all  the  rest  be  watching  and  fatigue — 
when  running  on  an  Island  how  to  Carry  his  boat  in  the  river 
again — when  thrown  on  land  by  the  ice  his  oars  run  in  the  earth 
almost  to  the  handle  how  to  get  her  afloat  again  and  how  to 


238  The  Ohio  River 

run  into  a  harbour  for  Safety  and  live  in  the  boat  when  it  is 
cold  enough  to  freeze  a  dog  to  death — such  with  but  few  excep- 
tions has  been  our  Case  since  we  embarked. 

We  left  Pusey's  large  Boat  on  the  Point  of  Marietta  Island — 
stopped  twenty  four  hours  to  help  them  off  but  in  vain — took 
in  about  95  barrels  of  their  loading  Coffing  took  in  about  20 — 
Wm.  Pusey  left  hands  to  take  care  of  his  boat  and  is  gone  on 
in  the  ice  with  Coffing's  boat — the  ice  being  too  heavy  we  thought 
it  prudent  to  lay  bye  this  freight  and  a  great  part  of  our  whiskey 
lays  on  Shore  we  intend  unloading  every  barrel  and  I  expect 
shall  have  difficulty  to  Save  our  boat  when  the  river  breaks  up. 

Though  few  in  number  there  were  a  score  of  covered 
boats,  of  about  one  hundred  tons  each,  more  properly 
known  as  barges,  that  both  descended  and  ascended  the 
Ohio  River;  their  cargo  down-stream  was  practically 
the  same  as  that  of  the  trading  fiatboat  and  their  cargo 
up-stream  was  merchandise  from  New  Orleans.  In  the 
difficult  task  of  driving  these  heavy  boats  against  the 
Mississippi  and  Ohio  tides  every  power  known  was 
employed,  oars,  poles,  sails,  and  the  tow-line.  No  less 
a  pen  than  that  of  the  naturalist  Audubon  has  left  us 
an  exact  description  of  this  difficult  feat: 

We  shall  suppose  one  of  these  boats  under  way,  and,  having 
passed  Natchez,  entering  upon  what  were  called  the  difficulties 
of  their  ascent.  Wherever  a  point  projected  so  as  to  render 
the  course  or  bend  below  it  of  some  magnitude,  there  was  an 
eddy,  the  returning  current  of  which  was  sometimes  as  strong  as 
that  of  the  middle  of  the  great  stream.  The  bargemen,  therefore, 
rowed  up  pretty  close  under  the  bank,  and  had  merely  to  keep 
watch  in  the  bow  lest  the  boat  should  run  against  a  planter  or 
sawyer.  But  the  boat  has  reached  the  point,  and  there  the 
current  is  to  all  appearance  of  double  strength  and  right  against 
it.  The  men,  who  have  rested  a  few  minutes,  are  ordered  to 
take  their  stations  and  lay  hold  of  their  oars,  for  the  river  must 
be  crossed,  it  being  seldom  possible  to  double  such  a  point  and 
proceed  along  the  same  shore.     The  boat  is  crossing,  its  head 


X 


o 


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Ub^Ai^'y 


i.Tvr 


From  Keelboat  to  Schooner  239 

slanting  to  the  current,  which  is,  however,  too  strong  for  the 
rowers,  and  when  the  other  side  of  the  river  has  been  reached, 
it  has  drifted  perhaps  a  quarter  of  a  mile.  The  men  are  by  this 
time  exhausted,  and,  as  we  shall  suppose  it  to  be  12  o'clock, 
fasten  the  boat  to  a  tree  on  the  shore.  A  small  glass  of  whiskey 
is  given  to  each,  when  they  cook  and  eat  their  dinner,  and  after 
resting  from  their  fatigue  for  an  hour,  recommence  their  labors. 
The  boat  is  again  seen  slowly  advancing  against  the  stream. 
It  has  reached  the  lower  end  of  a  sandbar,  along  the  edge  of 
which  it  is  propelled  by  means  of  long  poles,  if  the  bottom  be 
hard.  Two  men,  called  bowsmen,  remain  at  the  prow  to  assist, 
in  concert  with  the  steersman,  in  managing  the  boat  and  keeping 
its  head  right  against  the  current.  The  rest  place  themselves 
on  the  land  side  of  the  footway  of  the  vessel,  put  one  end  of 
their  poles  on  the  ground  and  the  other  against  their  shoulders 
and  push  them  with  all  their  might.  As  each  of  the  men  reaches 
the  stern,  he  crosses  to  the  other  side,  runs  along  it,  and  comes 
again  to  the  landward  side  of  the  bow,  when  he  recommences 
operations.  The  barge  in  the  meantime  is  ascending  at  a  rate 
not  exceeding  one  mile  in  the  hour. 

The  bar  is  at  length  passed,  and  as  the  shore  in  sight  is 
straight  on  both  sides  and  the  current  uniformly  strong,  the 
poles  are  laid  aside,  and  the  men  being  equally  divided,  those 
on  the  river  side  take  to  their  oars,  while  those  on  the  land  side 
lay  hold  of  the  branches  of  willows  or  other  trees,  and  thus 
slowly  propel  the  boat.  Here  and  there,  however,  the  trunk 
of  a  fallen  tree,  partly  lying  on  the  bank  and  partly  projecting 
beyond  it,  impedes  their  progress  and  requires  to  be  doubled. 
This  is  performed  by  striking  into  it  the  iron  points  of  the  poles 
and  gaff-hooks,  and  so  pulling  around  it.  The  sun  is  now  quite 
low,  and  the  barge  is  again  secured  in  the  best  harbor  within 
reach  for  the  night,  after  having  accomplished  a  distance  of 
perhaps  fifteen  miles.  The  next  day  the  wind  proves  favorable, 
the  sail  is  set,  the  boat  takes  all  advantages,  and  meeting  with 
no  accident,  has  ascended  thirty  miles — perhaps  double  that 
distance.  The  next  day  comes  with  a  very  different  aspect. 
The  wind  is  right  ahead,  the  shores  are  without  trees  of  any  kind, 
and  the  canes  on  the  bank  are  so  thick  and  stout  that  not  even 


240  The  Ohio  River 

the  cordelles  can  be  used.  This  occasions  a  halt.  The  time  is 
not  altogether  lost,  as  most  of  the  men,  being  provided  with 
rifles,  betake  themselves  to  the  woods  and  search  for  the  hares, 
or  the  turkeys  that  are  generally  abundant  there.  Three  days 
may  pass  before  the  wind  changes,  and  the  advantages  gained 
on  the  previous  five  are  forgotten.  Again  the  boat  proceeds, 
but  in  passing  over  a  shallow  place,  runs  on  a  log,  swings  with 
the  current  but  hangs  fast  with  her  lee-side  almost  under  water. 
Now  for  the  poles!  All  hands  are  on  deck,  busthng  and  pushing. 
At  length,  towards  sunset,  the  boat  is  once  more  afloat,  and  is 
again  taken  to  the  shore  where  the  wearied  crew  pass  another 
night. 

I  could  tell  you  of  the  crew  abandoning  the  boat  and  cargo 
and  of  numberless  accidents  and  perils,  but  be  it  enough  to  say, 
that  advancing  in  this  tardy  manner,  the  boat  that  left  New 
Orleans  on  the  ist  of  March,  often  did  not  reach  the  Falls  of 
Ohio,  Louisville,  until  the  month  of  July,  sometimes  not  until 
October;  and  after  all  this  immense  trouble,  it  brought  only  a 
few  bags  of  coffee  and  at  most  one  hundred  hogsheads  of  sugar. 
Such  was  the  state  of  things  as  late  as  1808.  The  number  of 
barges  at  that  period  did  not  amount  to  more  than  twenty-five 
or  thirty,  and  the  largest  probably  did  not  exceed  one  hundred 
tons  burden.  To  make  the  best  of  this  fatiguing  navigation, 
I  may  conclude  by  saying  that  a  barge  which  came  up  in  ihree 
months,  had  done  wonders,  for  I  believe  few  voyages  were 
performed  in  that  time. 

In  the  interval  between  the  opening  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  and  the  advent  of  the  steamboat  there 
is  a  romantic  chapter  in  Ohio  River  navigation.  It  is 
the  story  of  the  decade  of  brig  and  schooner  building 
— -when  Ohio  Valley  promoters  sought  to  establish  a 
trade  with  Europe  and  the  Indies.  In  those  days  of 
sailing  craft  all  of  the  greater  streams  were  commercial 
arteries  taking  the  place  of  our  railways  to-day.  There 
were  few  or  no  roads.  When,  then,  the  ' '  Monongahela 
country"  began  to  export  produce  and  manufactures, 
enterprising  men  were  soon  at  work  planning  to  build 


From  Keelboat  to  Schooner  241 

up  a  trade  with  the  South  and  with  Europe.  There 
were  many  times  each  year  when  the  Ohio  would  float 
sea-going  vessels.  Before  the  nineteenth  century 
dawned,  even,  these  were  being  built. 

At  that  moment  Spain  and  France  held  the  Missis- 
sippi and  obstructed  that  outlet  for  western  commerce. 
For  a  time  it  seemed  as  though  war  would  ensue  and  in 
1798  and  1 799  the  two  armed  galleys,  President  Adams 
and  Senator  Ross,  were  built  in  Pittsburg  for  service  on 
the  Mississippi  in  the  event  of  trouble.  Major  Craig 
wrote  in  May,  1798: 

On  the  19th  inst.  thegalley  "  President  Adams"  was  launched, 
and  is  now  at  anchor  in  the  Allegheny.  She  will  be  completely 
equipped  in  a  few  days,  and  will,  I  am  confident,  be  as  fine  a 
vessel  of  her  burden  and  construction,  as  the  United  States 
possesses.  The  keel  of  the  second  galley  is  laid,  and  the  materials 
prepared.  [Later  he  adds]  The  galley  "Senator  Ross"  has  been 
launched,  and  is  now  rigged,  and  will,  in  a  few  days,  be  fully 
equipped  for  the  Mississippi.  She  is  anchored  in  the  Monon- 
gahela,  abreast  of  the  town.  She  is  certainly  a  fine  piece  of 
naval  architecture,  and  one  which  will  far  exceed  anything 
the  Spaniards  can  show  on  the  Mississippi, 

It  was  in  the  year  of  1800,  probably,  that  the  first 
ocean  rigged  vessel  weighed  anchor  on  the  Ohio  for 
the  sea.  The  first  of  such  craft  seems  to  have  been 
the  good  ship  St.  Clair,  a  brig  of  no  tons,  built  at 
Marietta  on  the  Muskingum  River  at  the  foot  of  Monroe 
Street,  by  Stephen  Devol,  for  Charles  Greene  &  Co.,  of 
Marietta.  Its  commander  was  the  old  hero  Commodore 
Abraham  Whipple,  who  almost  precipitated  the  Revo- 
lutionary^ War  in  1772,  by  leading  that  famous  party 
which  destroyed  the  Gaspee  in  Narragansett  Bay, 
in  1772,  and  to  whom  Sir  William  Wallace  wrote  the 

famous  message:   "You,   Abraham   Whipple,   burned 
16 


242  The  Ohio  River 

his  Majesty's  vessel  Gaspee  and  I  will  hang  you  at 
yard  arm.  [Signed]  William  Wallace."  The  St 
Clair  cleared  Marietta  in  May,  1800,  with  a  cargo  of 
flour  and  pork  for  Havana.  The  spectacle  of  this 
Revolutionary  hero  taking  to  sea  again  a  generation 
later  in  the  first  sea-going  vessel  that  ever  descended 
the  Ohio  was  considered  worthy  of  a  celebration. 
Captain  Jonathan  Devol  of  Marietta  contributed  a 
poem,  in  which  Neptune  greets  the  hero  of  olden 
time.     The  last  verse  reads: 

But  now  he  comes  from  the  western  woods 

Descending  slow  with  gentle  floods 

The  pioneer  of  a  mighty  train, 

Which  commerce  brings  to  my  domain. 

Up!     Sons  of  the  wave, 

Greet  the  noble  and  the  brave. 

Present  your  arms  unto  him. 

His  gray  hair  shows 

Life  's  near  its  close; 
Let  *s  pay  the  honors  due  him. 
Sea  attend  with  lute  and  lyre. 

And  bring  your  conches  my  Triton  sons; 
A  chorus  blow  to  the  aged  sire, 

A  welcome  to  my  dominions. 

The  "Falls  of  the  Ohio"  were  safely  passed  and  the 
St.  Clair  anchored  off  New  Orleans  early  in  July.  The 
Cuban  capital  was  reached  and  in  August  the  St.  Clair 
cleared  with  a  cargo  of  sugar  for  Philadelphia.  In  this 
port  she  was  sold,  her  commander  returning  by  land 
to  Marietta.  The  venture  was  a  success  and  several 
boat-yards  now  began  building  ships  for  sea ;  two  were 
built  in  1801,  four  in  1803,  two  in  1804,  and  eleven  in 
the  next  four  years.  In  1808  Jefferson's  embargo  act 
was  a  severe  blow  to  the  Ohio  ship-building  industry. 


Admiral  Abraham  Whipple. 


l(fc«?/ipv 


■  '  ( 


.J  Q' 


From  Keelboat  to  Schooner  243 

Fortunately  there  is  presei-ved  for  us  considerable 
information  of  these  ship-building  days  in  the  annals 
of  a  famous  old-time  "Monongahela  country"  port. 
In  1800  there  was  formed  at  Elizabeth,  Pennsylvania, 
what  was  known  as  the  Monongahela  Company,  and 
a  schooner  of  250  tons  was  built  and  named  Monon- 
gahela Farmer.  On  a  June  freshet,  1801,  this  ship  de- 
parted for  southern  ports.  She  was  in  the  charge  of  Mr. 
John  Walker,  who  bore  the  title  of  "Master  and  Super- 
cargo of  the  Sch.ooner Monongahela  Farmer  and  cargo." 
The  instructions  given  Captain  Walker  throw  much 
light  on  the  history  of  this  early  sea-going  vessel;  the 
first  to  descend  the  Ohio  of  which  we  have  any  clear 
record : 

Elizabeth  Town,  Pa. 

nth  May,  1801. 
Mr.  John  Walker,  Sir, — You  being  appointed  Master  & 
Supercargo  of  the  Schooner,  Monongahela  Fanner  and  the 
cargo  thereof  by  the  Monongahela  Company,  and  as  you  have 
given  Bond  and  Security  for  the  faithful  performance  of  the 
duties  belonging  thereto,  you  are  hereby  directed  to  go  on 
Board  of  and  take  charge  of  the  said  vessel  and  cargo  (with 
the  hands  you  have  engaged  for  the  purpose)  and  proceed 
without  unnecessary  delay  to  the  City  of  New  Orleans  and 
there  you  are  if  you  find  it  necessary  to  employ  on  commission 
Cochem  and  Wray,  or  any  other  house  you  in  your  Judgement 
may  think  proper,  to  assist  you  in  entering  and  selling  said 
vessel  and  Cargo,  which  you  will  perform  on  the  Best  terms  and 
in  as  short  a  time  as  possible  (at  the  same  time  exercising  your 
Judgement  and  acquiring  every  information  in  your  power 
with  respect  to  the  probable  rise  or  fall  of  the  markets  on  account 
of  which  it  may  be  proper  to  delay  for  some  time)  you  are  to 
Keep  a  true  account  of  the  sales  you  make,  and  all  the  Bills 
thereof  you  are  to  produce  as  vouchers,  as  also  a  true  statement 
of  the  expenses  of  necessary  out-lays.  Provided  nevertheless 
that  should  the  market::  for  flour  be  low  at  New  Orleans  and  the 


244  The  Ohio  River 

vessel  appear  to  sell  to  disadvantage  You  in  that  case  have  it 
in  your  power  to  sell  a  part  of  the  cargo,  to  purchase  riging, 
fit  out  the  vessel  and  employ  hands  to  sail  her  to  any  of  the 
Islands  you  in  your  Judgement  and  to  the  Best  information 
May  think  best,  and  there  make  sale  of  the  Vessel  &  Cargo. 
In  either  cases  you  are  as  soon  as  the  Sales  are  made  to  return 
by  the  most  advantageous  route  in  your  opinion  with  the  pro- 
ceeds of  the  Sales  (after  paying  the  necessary  expenses)  and 
put  them  into  the  hands  of  David  Pollock  &  John  Robison, 
Trustees  for  the  said  company,  in  order  that  a  dividend  be  made 
to  the  owners  agreeable  to  their  inputs. 

We  for  ourselves  and  on  behalf  of  said  Company  wish  you 
a  prosperous  voyage  and  a  speedy  return. 

Jacob  Ferree, 
John  Robison, 
David  Pollock. 

From  Louisville  Captain  Walker  wrote  the  following 
picturesque  letter  to  his  wife: 

August  the  26,  1 80 1. 
On  board  the  Schooner  Monongahela  Farmer, 

Louisville,    Falls  of    Ohio. 

Dear  Wife:  I  received  your  letter  dated  August  4,  which 
gave  me  a  great  deal  of  satisfaction,  to  hear  that  you  were  all 
well  at  that  time,  hoping  these  may  find  you  all  as  well  as  when 
you  wrote  me.  I  have  had  my  health  very  well  so  far,  thanks 
be  to  Providence  for  it,  though  it  is  not  very  healthy  here.  Job 
McGill  has  got  the  fever  now,  but  appears  to  be  getting  a  little 
better.  I  pass  the  time  away,  but  very  dull  since  Job  has  been 
sick,  as  he  is  out  in  a  boarding  house,  and  I  sleep  in  the  vessel 
alone. 

I  have  been  out  at  some  of  my  acquaintances  near  this  place — 
at  Moses  ICuykendall's,  Caty  Hart's  and  Jack  Frazier's.  You 
may  tell  Polly  Wall  that  her  sister  that  Hves  with  Mr.  Kuyken- 
dall  has  joined  the  Baptist  church  and  been  baptized,  as  well  as 
those  I  have  just  mentioned.  There  is  a  great  stir  of  religion 
through  a  great  many  parts  of  Kentucky,  though  it  is  not  here, 
for  I  believe  that  Louisville  is  as  wicked  as  any  place  in  the 
world.     I  have  been  creditably  informed  that  there  have  been 


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From  Keelboat  to  Schooner  245 

as  many  as  five  thousand  people  at  one  sacrament  together, 
some  of  all  denominations,  and  have  camped  on  the  ground 
for  four  or  five  days.  I  have  been  told  that  there  have  been  as 
many  as  three  hundred  converts  in  one  day,  and  that  there  is 
no  (distinction  between  the  Presbyterians  and  Methodists,  but 
helping  each  other  to  comfort  the  poor  sinner  at  such  times. 

There  was  a  curious  circumstance  took  place  here  last  week, 
it  being  court  times,  between  a  Mr.  Allen  and  a  Mr.  Dickkeson, 
both  Esquires,  Attorneys  at  law.  The  latter  gave  Mr.  Allen 
a  challenge,  which  he  soon  accepted,  and  they  crossed  the  Ohio 
on  Friday  morning,  with  their  seconds.  When  over,  their 
seconds,  measuring  off  the  ground  between  them,  back  to  back, 
then  giving  the  word  to  march  five  steps,  wheel  and  fire,  which 
thev  soon  did.  Allen  was  wounded  in  the  shoulder  and  the 
other  in  the  belly,  though  supposed  not  to  be  mortal.  They 
were  both  men  of  family.  The  affront  was  given  at  a  low  table, 
as  I  understand. 

I  have  heard  that  Lieutenant  Brown  is  married.  Please  to 
wish  him  much  joy  for  me. 

Our  vessel  stands  the  hot  weather  much  better  than  I 
expected,  but  our  flour  does  not  stand  it  so  well. 

I  wish  you  to  keep  in  as  good  spirits  as  possible  until  I  return, 
which  I  expect  will  not  be  a  great  while,  if  God  spares  me.  1 
have  nothing  more  at  present,  but  remain  your  loving  husband 
until  death, 

John  Walker. 

Diana  Walker. 

The  Monongahela  Farmer  was  delayed  several 
months  at  the  "Falls  of  the  Ohio"  before  sufificient 
water  came  to  carry  the  boat  over;  she  was  again  de- 
layed on  what  has  since  been  known  as  Walker's  Bar 
above  Hurricane  Island.  New  Orleans  was  at  last 
reached  in  the  fall  of  1801 ;  and,  though  the  flour  had 
soured,  Captain  Walker  advantageously  disposed  cf 
the  rest  of  the  cargo  and  the  ship.  Full-rigged  by  her 
new  owners  the  schooner  built  from  the  forests  of  the 
far-away  ''Monongahela  country"   had  a  useful  career 


246  The  Ohio  River 

on  the  Mississippi  and,  later,  it  is  said,  in  the  New  York 
and  West  Indies  trade. 

The  French  name  Tarascon  will  ever  live  on  the 
Ohio  River.  Louis  Anastius  Tarascon  emigrated  from 
France  in  1 794  and  became  a  merchant  at  Philadelphia. 

In  1799  [writes  Mr.  George  H.  Thurston]  he  sent  two  of  his 
clerks,  Charies  Brugiere  and  James  Berthoud,  to  examine  the 
course  of  the  Ohio  and  Mississippi  from  Pittsburg  to  New  Orleans 
and  ascertain  the  practicability  of  sending  ships,  and  clearing 
them  ready  rigged,  from  Pittsburg  to  Europe  and  the  West 
Indies.  The  two  gentlemen  reported  favorably,  and  Mr. 
Tarascon  associated  them,  and  his  brother,  John  A.  Anthony, 
with  himself,  under  the  firm  of  John  A.  Tarascon  Brothers, 
James  Berthoud  &  Co.,  and  immediately  established  at  Pittsburg 
a  wholesale  and  retail  store  and  warehouse,  a  ship-yard,  a  sail 
and  rigging  loft,  an  anchor  smithshop,  a  block  manufactory 
and  all  other  things  necessary  to  complete  sea-going  vessels. 
The  first  year,  1801,  they  built  the  schooner  "Amity,"  of  120 
tons,  and  the  ship  "Pittsburg"  of  250  tons,  and  sent  the  former, 
loaded  with  flour,  to  Philadelphia,  from  whence  they  sent  them 
to  Bordeaux,  France,  and  brought  back  a  cargo  of  wine,  brandy 
and  other  French  goods,  part  of  which  they  sent  in  wagons  to 
Pittsburg  at  a  carriage  of  from  six  to  eight  cents  a  pound.  In 
1802  they  built  the  brig  "Nanina,"  of  250  tons;  in  1803  the 
ship  "Louisiana"  of  300  tons  and  1804  the  ship  "Western 
Trader"  of  400  tons. 

The  Pittsburg  Gazette  of  December  31,  1802,  says: 

On  Thursday  afternoon,  the  23d  inst.,  was  launched  from 
the  ship-yard  of  Tarascon  Bros.,  Jas.  Berthoud  &  Co.,  the 
schooner  "Amitv, "  burden  100  tons. 

And  in  the  same  paper  under  an  April  date,  we  read : 

The  ship  "Pittsburg"  and  the  schooner  "Amity,"  launched 
a  short  time  before,  .  .  .  cleared  from  this  port,  the  former  for 
Lisbon  and  the  latter  for  St.  Thomas,  loaded  with  flour.  The 
" Pittsburg "  registered  270  tons,  the  largest  boat  built  thus  far 
on  western  waters. 


From  Keelboat  to  Schooner  247 

Thaddeus  Harris  saw  the  Amity  and  Pittsburg  pass 
Marietta  May  5th;  his  record  is: 

The  following  day  there  passed  down  the  schooner  "Amity" 
of  193  tons,  from  Pittsburg,  and  the  ship  "Pittsburg"  of  275  tons 
burden,  from  the  same  place,  laden  with  seventeen  hundred 
barrels  of  flour,  with  the  rest  of  her  cargo  in  flat-bottomed  boats. 
In  the  evening  the  brig  "Mary  Avery,"  of  130  tons,  built  at 
Marietta,  set  sail.  These  afforded  an  interesting  spectacle  to  the 
inhabitants  of  this  place,  who  saluted  the  vessels  as  they  passed 
with  three  cheers,  and  by  firing  a  small  piece  of  ordnance 
from  the  banks. 

Mr.  Harris  saw  a  schooner,  Dorcas  and  Sally  by 
name,  of  70  tons,  which  had  been  built  at  Wheeling 
and  rigged  at  Marietta,  and  speaks  also  of  the  Mus- 
kingum (204  tons),  Eliza  Greene  (115  tons),  Indiana 
(100  tons),  and  brig  Marietta  (130  tons),  all  built  at 
Marietta.     Of  these  ships  he  writes: 

Good  judges  of  naval  architecture  have  pronounced  these 
vessels  equal,  in  point  of  workmanship  and  materials,  to  the 
best  that  have  been  made  in  America.  The  firmness  and  great 
length  of  their  planks,  and  the  excellency  of  their  timbers 
(their  frames  being  almost  wholly  composed  of  black  walnut, 
a  wood  which,  if  properly  selected,  has  nearly  the  strength  of 
white  oak,  and  the  durabiUty  of  the  live  oak  of  the  south  without 
its  weight)  it  is  believed  will  give  these  vessels  the  preference 
over  any  built  of  the  timber  commonly  made  use  of,  in  any 
market  where  there  are  competent  judges.  This  part  of  the 
country  owes  much  to  those  gentlemen,  who,  in  a  new  and 
experimental  fine,  have  set  this  example  of  enterprise  and 
perseverance. 

But  after  the  first  successes  it  was  realized  that  the 
Ohio  was  unfavorable  for  the  operation  of  these  deep- 
bellied  ships;  the  floods  were  too  uncertain  and  the 
myriad  obstacles  too  dangerous  considering  the  amount 
of  money  at  hazard.  In  a  decade  the  ship-building 
business  had  quite  ceased;  misfortunes  and  accidents 


248  The  Ohio  River 

"have  given  a  damp,"  an  old  writer  puts  it,  181 1,  "to 
ships  building  at  present." 

But  the  dawning  of  a  new  da}^  in  inland  navigation 
was  at  hand;  not  so  picturesque  as  the  old  but  far 
more  successful. 


O    Ji 

o  -^ 


t^     o 


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o 


1) 


ii 


vmm 


Chapter  XI 
From  Pittsburof  to  Louisville  in  1806 


to 


THE  Ohio  River  is  a  commonplace  affair  to  those 
who  live  beside  it  to-day;  its  floods,  droughts, 
and  other  phases  receive  but  slight  notice  un- 
less property  is  in  danger.  Few,  if  any,  are 
leaving  on  paper  a  record  of  the  river  in  what  are  per- 
haps the  last  years  preceding  a  new  era  of  slack-water 
navigation.  If  anything  approximating  true  pictures 
of  the  river  are  being  preserved  it  is  being  done,  no 
doubt,  by  travellers  who  see  the  valley  and  are  inter- 
ested in  matters  which  are  too  commonplace  to  be 
noted  by  those  who  meet  them  every  day. 

Now,  this  was  exactly  the  case  a  century  ago;  it 
was  those  who,  seemingly,  knew  least  of  the  river  that 
left  the  best  accounts  of  it.  Thousands  who  lived 
by  the  Ohio  one  hundred  years  ago  to-day  could  have 
left  us  valuable  records  of  great  interest  if  they  could 
only  have  realized  sufficiently  that  what  was  humdrum 
and  ordinary  to  them  would  not  have  been  so  to  us  of 
another  century.  The  result  was  that  travellers  in  the 
^^alley  left  the  best  descriptions  of  it,  and  while  many 
of  their  statements  were  overdrawn  and  often  incorrect, 
yet  there  are  left  some  remarkably  vivid  pictures  that 
will  have  a  lasting  value. 

One  of  these  was  from  the  pen  of  the  erratic  and 

249 


250  The  Ohio  River 

opinionated  but  honest  Thomas  Ashe,  the  English 
traveller ;  and  as  a  description  of  the  Ohio  of  a  century 
ago  it  probably  stands,  despite  some  extravagance  of 
statement,  unequalled  in  accuracy  and  vividness. 
Leaving  Pittsburg  (1806),  he  descended  the  river  in  a 
flatboat,  which  he  describes,  together  with  many  things 
and  people  he  saw.  Some  of  his  more  interesting 
paragraphs  read  as  follows: 

The  settlements  on  each  side  of  the  Ohio  are  extensive,  and 
much  of  the  land  is  good  and  well  cultivated.  The  appearance 
of  the  rising  towns  and  the  regularly  disposed  farms  on  its  banks, 
is  truly  delightful  to  passengers.  In  autumn  and  spring  it  is 
generally  covered  with  what  are  here  called  trading  and  family 
boats;  the  former  loaded  with  flour,  whiskey,  cyder,  apples, 
peach-brandy,  bacon,  iron,  glass,  earthen  ware,  cabinet  work,  &c., 
all  being  the  produce  and  manufacture  of  the  country,  and 
destined  for  Kentucky  and  New-Orleans :  and  the  latter  carrying 
furniture,  utensils,  and  tools  for  the  cultivation  of  the  soil.  No 
scene  can  be  more  pleasing  to  a  philosophic  mind  than  this; 
which  presents  to  view  a  floating  town,  as  it  were,  on  the  face 
of  a  river,  whose  gentle  rapidity  and  flowered  banks  add  sub- 
limity to  cheerfulness;  and  the  sweet  harmony  of  the  songsters 
of  the  woods,  to  the  hoarseness  of  the  falling  cataract  or  the 
murmur  of  the  quiet  stream. 

The  numerous  islands  that  are  interspersed  in  this  river, 
add  much  to  the  grandeur  of  its  appearance,  but  they  very 
much  embarrass  the  navigation,  particularly  in  low  water, 
as  they  occasion  a  great  many  shoals  and  sand  bars.  The  soil 
of  those  islands  is,  for  the  most  part,  very  rich,  the  timber 
luxuriant,  and  the  extent  of  some  of  them  considerable.  Where 
fruit  trees  have  been  planted,  they  are  found  to  thrive,  to  bear 
well,  and  seldom  fail  of  a  crop.  Indeed  this  is  the  case  wherever 
fruit  trees  have  been  tried  on  the  river  bottoms,  the  soil  of 
which  is  very  similar  to  that  of  the  islands,  though  not  quite  so 
sandy. 

In  times  of  high  freshies,  and  during  the  effusion  of  ice  and 
snow  from  the  Allegheny  and  other  mountains,  vessels  of  almost 


From  Pittsburg  to  Louisville  in  1806      251 

any  tonnage  may  descend;  and  it  is  never  so  low  but  that  it 
may  be  navigated  by  canoes  and  other  Hght  craft,  not  drawing 
more  than  twelve  inches  water.  The  highest  floods  are  in  spring, 
when  the  river  rises  forty-five  feet;  the  lowest  are  in  summer, 
when  it  sinks  to  twelve  inches  on  the  bars,  ripples,  and  shoals 
where  waggons,  carts,  &c.  frequently  pass.  Many  of  the  im- 
pediments however  which  are  to  be  met  with  when  the  water 
is  low,  might  in  a  dry  time  be  got  rid  of,  and  at  no  very  consider- 
able expense ;  at  least  the  expense  would  be  by  no  means  beyond 
the  advantages  which  would  accrue  from  the  undertaking  if 
properly  managed.  Rocks,  that  now  during  the  dry  season, 
obstruct  or  render  dangerous  the  large  flat  bottomed,  or  what 
are  called  Kentucky  boats,  might  be  blasted;  channels  might 
be  made  through  the  ripples;  and  the  snags,  and  fallen  timber 
along  the  banks  entirely  removed. 

The  first  thing  to  be  attended  to  by  emigrants,  or  travellers, 
wishing  to  descend  the  river,  is  to  procure  a  boat,  to  be  ready 
so  as  to  take  advantage  of  the  times  of  flood,  and  to  be  careful 
that  the  boat  be  a  good  one;  for  many  of  the  accidents  that 
happen  in  navigating  the  Ohio  and  Mississippi,  are  owing  to 
the  unpardonable  carelessness  and  penuriousness  of  the  boat 
builder,  who  will  frequently  slight  his  work,  or  make  it  of  injured 
plank ;  in  either  case  putting  the  lives  and  properties  of  a  great 
many  persons  to  manifest  hazard.  This  egregious  misconduct 
should  long  before  this  time  been  rectified,  by  the  appointment 
of  a  boat  inspector  at  different  places  on  the  Monongahela. 
But  as  this  has  never  been  done,  it  belongs  to  every  person 
purchasing  Kentucky  boats,  which  is  the  sort  I  allude  to,  to 
get  them  narrowly  examined  before  the  embarkation,  by  persons 
who  may  know  a  little  of  the  strength  and  form  of  a  boat  suit- 
able to  a  voyage  of  this  kind.  He  must  also  remember  this, 
that  a  boat  destined  for  the  Mississippi,  requires  to  be  much 
stronger  timbered,  and  somewhat  differently  constructed,  from 
one  designed  only  to  descend  the  Ohio. 

Flat  bottomed  boats  may  be  procured  almost  everywhere 
along  the  Monongahela  River,  and  in  some  places  on  the  Yough- 
iogheny;  very  few  are  as  yet  built  on  the  Allegheny,  as  the 
chief  places  of  embarkation  are  confined  to  the  Monongahela 


252  The  Ohio  River 

and  Ohio.  Keel  boats  and  vessels  of  burden  are  also  built  at 
Brownsville,  Elizabeth's-town,  and  many  other  places  on  the 
two  last  mentioned  rivers. 

The  best  seasons  for  navigating  the  Ohio  are  spring  and 
autumn.  The  spring  season  commences  at  the  breaking  up  of 
the  ice,  which  generally  happens  about  the  middle  of  February, 
and  continues  good  for  about  three  months.  The  autumn 
generally  commences  in  October,  and  continues  till  about  the 
first  of  December,  when  the  ice  begins  to  form.  But  the  alter- 
nations of  high  water  can  scarcely  be  called  periodical,  as  they 
vary  considerably,  according  to  the  wetness  or  dryness  of  the 
season,  or  earliness  or  lateness  of  the  setting  in,  or  breaking  up 
of  winter.  The  winter  of  1802  was  even  an  exception  to  every 
other,  the  Monongahela  not  having  been  closed  at  all  with  ice, 
so  that  there  was  nothing  to  impede  the  passage  of  boats  into 
the  Ohio,  &c.  This  circumstance  is  the  more  extraordinary, 
the  winters  in  general  being  very  severe,  some  of  which  a  few 
years  past,  kept  the  rivers  blocked  up  for  more  than  two  months 
at  a  time.  The  cause  of  these  sudden  and  great  changes  may 
usefully  occupy  the  philosophic  mind. 

Nor  are  freshes  in  the  rivers  entirely  confined  to  the  spring 
and  autumn:  it  does  not  infrequently  happen  that  a  considerable 
quantity  of  rain  falls  in  the  Apalachian  ridges,  whence  the  rivers 
and  creeks  that  supply  the  Monongahela  proceed,  during  the 
summer  months;  a  swelling  of  the  currents  of  the  Allegheny 
and  other  rivers,  sometimes  also  happens,  and  occasions  a 
sufficient  supply  of  water  during  the  same  period  to  render 
the  navigation  of  the  Ohio  perfectly  eligible.  These  rains,  or 
freshes,  however,  must  not  be  depended  on,  and  when  they 
occur,  must  be  taken  immediate  advantage  of  as  the  waters 
subside  rapidly. 

When  provided  with  a  good  boat  and  strong  cable  of  at  least 
forty  feet  long,  there  is  little  danger  in  descending  the  river 
in  high  freshes,  using  due  precaution,  unless  at  times  when 
there  is  much  floating  ice.  Great  exertion  with  the  oars,  at 
such  times,  generally  speaking,  is  of  no  manner  of  use;  in  fact,  it 
is  rather  detrimental  than  otherwise,  by  often  throwing  the 
boat  out  of  the  current  in  which  she  ought  to  continue,  and 


From  Pittsburg  to  Louisville  in  1806      253 

which  will  carry  her  along  with  more  rapidity,  and  at  the  same 
time  always  take  her  right.  By  trusting  to  the  current  there 
is  no  danger  to  be  feared  in  passing  the  islands,  as  it  will  carry 
the  boat  by  them  in  safety.  On  the  other  hand,  if  persons 
row,  and  by  so  doing  happen  to  be  in  the  middle  of  the  river, 
on  approaching  an  island,  there  is  great  danger  of  being  thrown 
on  the  upper  point  of  it  before  they  are  aware,  or  have  time  to 
regain  the  true  current.  In  case  they  get  aground  in  such  a 
situation,  become  entangled  among  the  aquatic  timber,  which 
is  generally  abundant,  or  be  driven  by  the  force  of  the  water 
among  the  tops  or  trunks  of  other  trees,  they  may  consider 
themselves  in  imminent  danger;  and  nothing  but  presence 
of  mind  and  great  exertion  can  extricate  them  from  such  a 
dilemma. 

Persons  should  contrive  to  land  as  seldom  as  possible;  they 
need  not  even  lie  by  at  night,  provided  they  trust  to  the  current 
and  keep  a  good  look  out.  When  they  bring  to,  the  strength 
of  their  cable  is  their  principal  safe-guard.  A  quantity  of 
fuel,  provisions,  and  other  necessaries,  should  be  laid  in  at  once 
and  every  boat  should  have  a  skiff  or  canoe  along  side,  to  land 
on  shore  when  necessary. 

Though  the  labor  of  navigating  this  river  in  times  of  fresh 
is  very  considerable  to  what  it  is  during  low  water,  when  con- 
tinual rowing  is  necessary,  it  is  always  best  to  keep  a  good  look 
out,  and  be  strong  handed.  The  winds  sometimes  drive  boats 
too  near  the  points  of  the  islands,  or  in  projecting  parts  of  the 
main  shore,  when  considerable  extra  exertion  is  necessary  to 
surmount  the  difficulty.  Boats  most  commonly  meet  with 
head  winds,  as  the  river  is  so  very  crooked,  that  what  is  in  their 
favour  one  hour  will  probably  be  against  them  in  the  next,  and 
when  a  contrary  wind  contends  with  a  strong  current,  it  is  at- 
tended with  considerable  inconvenience,  and  requires  careful 
and  circumspect  management,  otherwise  the  boats  must  be 
driven  on  shore  in  spite  of  all  the  efforts  of  their  crews.  One 
favourable  circumstance  is,  that  the  wind  commonly  abates 
about  sun-set  in  summer. 

Boats  have  frequently  passed  from  Pittsburg  to  the  mouth 
of  the  Ohio  in  fifteen  days.     However,  twenty  days  is  a  good 


254  The  Ohio  River 

spring  passage.  In  summer,  six,  eight,  and  even  ten  weeks 
are  often  required  to  effect  the  same  voyage. ^ 

Descending  the  river  when  much  incommoded  with  floating 
ice,  should  be  as  much  as  possible  avoided,  particularly  early  in 
winter,  as  there  is  a  great  probability  of  its  stopping  the  boats ; 
however,  if  the  water  be  high  and  there  be  an  appearance 
of  open  weather,  they  may  venture,  unless  the  cakes  of  ice  be 
so  heavy  as  to  impede  their  progress,  or  injure  their  timbers ; 
the  boats  will  in  such  case  make  more  way  than  the  ice,  a  great 
deal  of  which  will  sink,  and  get  thinner  as  it  progresses;  but. 
on  the  other  hand,  if  the  water  be  low,  it  is  by  no  means  safe 
to  embark  on  it  when  anything  considerable  of  ice  remains. 

If  at  any  time  boats  are  obliged  to  bring  to  on  account  of 
the  ice,  great  circumspection  should  be  used  in  the  choice  of  a 
spot  to  lie  in.  There  are  many  places  where  the  shore,  pro- 
jecting to  a  point,  throws  off  the  flakes  of  ice  towards  the  middle 
of  the  river,  and  forms  a  kind  of  harbour  below.  By  bringing  to 
in  such  a  situation,  and  fixing  the  canoe  above  the  boat,  with  one 
end  strongly  to  the  shore,  and  the  other  out  in  the  stream, 
sloping  down  the  river,  so  as  to  drive  out  such  masses  of  ice  as 
would  otherwise  accumulate  on  the  upper  side  of  the  boat,  and 
tend  to  sink  her  and  drive  her  from  her  mo^^rings,  a  boat  may 
lie  with  a  tolerable  degree  of  safety.  This  is  a  much  better 
method  than  that  of  felling  a  tree  on  the  shore  above,  so  as  to 
fall  partly  into  the  river;  for  if,  in  its  fall,  it  does  not  adhere  in 
some  measure  to  the  stump,  or  rest  sufficiently  on  the  bank,  the 
weight  of  accumulated  ice  will  be  apt  to  send  it  adrift,  and  bring 
it  down,  ice  and  all,  on  the  boat,  when  no  safety  can  be  ex- 
pected from  it;    nor  any  means  of  extrication  from  so  great  a 

dilemma. 

The  settlements  themselves  frequently  suffer  by  this  their 
shameful  prodigaHty  and  want  of  foresight,  as  boats  on  making 
them,  and  not  finding  an  immediate  fastening  and  safe  landing, 
drop  below  the  settlements  never  again  to  return ;  for  it  would 
take  a  flat  boat  and  forty  hands  ten  days  to  make  good  five 
miles  against  the  stream.  You  must  understand  from  the 
stress  I  have  laid  on  the  necessity  of  a  fastening  on  shore,  and 

>  Cf.  ante,  p.  102,  note. 


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From  Pittsburg  to  Louisville  in  1806     255 

a  good  landing  place,  that  flat  boats  never  carry  an  anchor. 
The  method  to  run  the  boat  ashore  is,  jump  hastily  out,  and 
fasten  a  line  or  cable  round  a  stump,  tree,  &c. ;  or  hold  on  till 
a  stake  be  cut  and  driven  in  the  ground  for  the  same  purpose. 
I  purchased,  for  forty  dollars,  on  the  Monongahela  a  Kentucky 
boat.  I  must  describe  such  a  thing  to  you,  for  it  is  no  more 
like  an  English  boat  of  any  description,  than  it  is  like  a  church. 
An  oblong  frame  is  first  made  perhaps  forty  feet  long  by  sixteen 
wide.  The  four  pieces  forming  this  frame  are  generally  from 
fourteen  to  eighteen  inches  square,  mortised  so  as  to  receive 
a  number  of  bars  across,  on  which  are  fastened  thick  planks 
with  wooden  pins — this  forming  the  flat  bottom  of  the  boat. 
From  the  solid  beams  of  the  frame,  rise  several  uprights,  six 
feet  high,  to  which  boards  are  attached  to  form  the  ends  and 
sides;  after  which  the  boat  is  roofed  over  except  a  small  space 
through  which  the  hands  can  drop  or  enter.  The  whole  repre- 
sents an  oblong  apartment — both  ends  perfectly  square,  and 
nothing  indicates  the  bow  but  the  small  open  space  in  the  roof, 
and  holes  in  the  sides,  through  which  the  oars  work.  Boats 
of  this  sort  are  steered  by  a  large  oar,  balanced  on  a  pivot, 
issuing  from  the  middle  uprights  of  the  stern.  This  is  preferred 
to  a  tiller,  which,  by  sinking  too  deep  in  the  water,  would  risk 
being  carried  off  by  logs  and  shoals.  I  divided  my  boat  into 
two  apartments,  that  next  the  stem  for  my  own  accommodation; 
that  next  the  head  for  my  servants  to  cook,  row,  and  keep  a 
look  out  in ;  the  roof  served  for  the  helmsman  and  as  a  quarter- 
deck, on  which  to  parade.  When  I  add  to  this,  that  I  had  a 
good  chimney  built  in  my  boat;  four  windows  made;  that  I 
laid  in  two  coops-full  of  chickens,  other  kinds  of  stores,  spirits, 
coffee,  sugar,  &c.  I  need  not  tell  you  how  comfortable  I  set  off, 
and  how  able  I  was  to  endure  the  vicissitudes  of  my  intended 
voyages.  My  servants  were  Mindeth,  my  old  follower,  and 
Cuff,  a  mustee,  of  the  Mandan  nation;  the  former  a  strong 
laborious  creature,  the  latter  a  fellow  without  any  other  char- 
acter than  that  he  knew  something  of  the  waters,  was  a  good 
shot,  and  well  acquainted  with  haunts  of  wild  turkies,  game, 
and  wild  beasts.  I  could  have  got  another  hand,  for  fifteen 
dollars  a  month,  but  as  I  was  determined  to  steer  myself  and  be 


256  The  Ohio  River 

active  in  other  respects,  I  departed  but  with  two  men.  I 
cannot  recommend  this  temerity  to  others:  four  hands  are 
always  necessary,    and   sometimes  more. 

Just  below  Macintosh,  which  is  twenty  eight  miles  from 
Pittsburg,  is  an  island  ^  called  after  the  same  name,  a  second 
island  not  named, 2  and  a  third  called  Grape  island.  On  this 
last  I  landed,  and  soon  discovered  the  propriety  of  the  name: 
the  passage  through  it  in  every  direction  was  rendered  intricate, 
by  the  multitudes  of  vines,  which  extended  from  tree  to  tree, 
rising  to  the  tops  of  some,  and  closely  embracing  the  bodies  of 
others.  Mindeth  commenced  preparations  for  dressing  dinner; 
Cuff  patiently  sat  on  the  side  of  the  boat  catching  fish,  and  I 
took  my  gun  and  dog  into  the  woods.  I  pierced  to  the  left 
side  of  the  island,  a  beautiful  portion  of  which  I  found  cleared, 
planted  with  Indian  com,  and  very  promising  wheat.  A 
neat  log-house  soon  appeared  in  view;  I  knocked,  the  door  was 
opened  by  an  old  woman,  about  whom  hung  three  children, 
the  whole  ematiated  with  sickness,  and  stained  by  the  languid 
colors  of  death.  They  betrayed  more  fear  than  surprise,  on 
beholding  me.  I  banished  this  impression  as  soon  as  possible, 
by  persuading  the  mother  that  I  did  not  come  to  rob  the  house, 
or  do  her  any  manner  of  injury;  that  I  was  not  a  Kentucky 
man  and  that  mere  chance,  not  a  disposition  to  plunder,  brought 
me  her  way.  On  this  she  assumed  some  serenity;  and  told 
me  that  the  Kentucky  men  so  often  landed  on  her  island  to 
steal  her  fruit,  fowls,  hogs,  &c.  that  she  was  alarmed  at  the 
sight  of  others,  from  an  apprehension  of  their  coming  with  the 
same  design.  The  husband  who  soon  after  came  in,  I  found 
to  be  a  German,  who  had  lived  long  enough  in  Virginia  to  pick 
up  some  Negro-English.  He  informed  me  that,  coming  down 
the  river  four  years  past  in  his  family  boat,  for  want  of  keep- 
ing a  good  look  out,  or  of  knowing  the  river,  he  took  the  wrong 
channel,  and  stove  his  boat  within  two  hundred  yards  of  the 
spot  where  his  house  now  stands.  The  water  being  shallow  he 
got  his  goods  ashore,  and  thinking  the  island  possessed  as  good 
land  as  any  he  could  procure  elsewhere,  he  determined  to  pro- 

'  Montgomery's  Island.      (See  The  Western  Pilot,  1829.) 
»  Phillis's  Island. 


From  Pittsburg  to  Louisville  in  1806     257 

ceed  no  further,  but  to  pitch  his  tent  where  providence  had  cast 
him,  and  set  and  with  a  good  heart  about  building  a  log  house 
and  clearing  ground  for  maize,  in  the  first  instance,  and  then  for 
wheat  and  other  objects  of  agriculture.  He  effected  this  laborious 
purpose  to  admiration.  His  house  was  comfortable;  his  garden 
neat ;  and  he  had  six  acres  of  land  under  a  crop  which  appeared 
perfectly  thriving.  He  had  bought  a  male  and  female  pig, 
which  had  multiplied  in  the  woods  prodigiously,  and  nothing 
appeared  to  interrupt  his  happiness  but  the  people  of  Kentuck, 
as  he  called  all  those  who  occasionally  made  a  descent  on  his 
island,  either  to  pursue  game  or  to  injure  him.  Robinson 
Crusoe  never  stood  in  so  much  dread  of  an  Indian  invasion  as 
this  German  did  of  his  own  fellow  citizens  and  inhabitants  of 
a  neighboring  State.  It  was  this  apprehension  it  seems  which 
hindered  him  from  making  his  settlement  on  the  channel  side 
of  the  island,  which,  under  any  other  impression  would  be 
infinitely  superior;  more  eligible  for  market;  and  more  inter- 
esting and  convenient  to  the  pleasures  and  comforts  of  life 
In  fact,  he  explained  to  me  his  motives  in  fewer  words;  they 
were  precisely  these: —  "If  the  people  of  Kentuck,  find  me  out 
sometimes  in  this  silent  part,  how  should  I  be  able  to  live, 
when  the  sight  of  smoke,  the  crowing  of  cocks  and  the  barking 
of  dogs  would  call  them  all  upon  me?"  .   .   . 

I  have  known  the  fog  remain  till  twelve  at  noon,  and  even 
for  two  or  three  hours  after.  At  such  times  the  navigation 
is  more  dangerous  than  on  the  darkest  night.  The  channel, 
islands,  rocks,  ripples,  snags,  sawyers,  and  a  variety  of  other 
dangers,  are  not  visible. — The  true  channel  cannot  be  seen, 
nor  the  true  current  observed;  and,  possibly,  owing  to  the  den- 
sity of  the  atmosphere,  the  noise  of  the  waters  beating  against 
objects  necessarily  to  be  avoided,  remains  drowned  and  unheard. 
I  might  with  truth  remark,  that  navigating  at  night  is,  in  many 
respects,  safer  than  in  a  foggy  day.  For  at  night  the  noise  of 
water  in  falls  and  ripples,  and  against  rocks  and  impediments, 
is  heard  at  a  much  greater  distance  than  it  is  on  the  finest  day, 
much  less  on  one,  when  sound  would  be  retarded  by  vapour  and 
corrupted  air.  I  have  heard  the  water  roar  on  a  fine  night,  to 
such  a  degree,  as  to  impose  a  belief  that   I   was  immediately 


258  The  Ohio  River 

approaching  a  dreadful  fall  or  rumbling  cataract.     After  running 

two  hours,  nearly  ten  miles,  with  the  utmost  precaution  and 

constant  look-out,   I  found  the  terrific  noise  to  proceed  from 

the  current  dashing  through  the  top  of  a  tree,  whose  root  had 

got  fast  near  the  bed  of  the  stream.     In  the  day  I  have  often 

seen  a  large  tree  almost  erect,  and  in  a  similar  situation;    but 

the  noise  the  passing  water  made  over  it  was  only  to  be  heard 

when  close  at  hand.     These  facts,  though  I  do  not  presume  to 

account  for  them,  are  equally  singular  and  fortunate ;  at  night 

the  navigator  is  warned  of  danger  he  cannot  see:    in  the  day 

he  beholds  a  danger  which  cannot  be  heard.     There  are,  however, 

two  alarming  peculiarities  belonging  to  the  night,  which  should 

not   go   unnoticed,     ist.     The   current   differs   considerably   in 

character  from  the  current  of  the  day.     In  the  day  its  breadth 

is  contracted,  often  to  within  the  width  of  the  boat,  or  less: 

and  it  delights  in  holding  a  favourite  shore ;  so  much  so  that  it 

is  difficult  to  steer  clear  of  the  bank,  which,  after  caressing  some 

hours,  it  hastily  abandons,  makes  nearly  across,  as  if  to  enjoy, 

for  a  certain  time,  the  beauties  of  the  opposite  shore.     In  the 

night  the  current  diffuses  itself  more  generally — spreads  out, 

and  finally  reaches  the  middle  of  the  river,  where  it  maintains 

itself  with  grace  and  majesty  till  the  morning,  when  it  contracts 

in    sphere,    increases   in    power,    and    alternately    visits    either 

bank.     Were   there   no   obstacles  in   the  middle   of  the  river, 

this   circumstance   of   a   nocturnal   current,   varying   from   the 

daily   channel  to  the   centre,   would  be  highly   favorable,   but 

as  islands  and  sand  bars  every  three  or  four  hours  occur,  it 

becomes  dangerous.     I  must  confess  my  ignorance  of  the  latent 

principle  which  occasions  the  variation  of  current.     My  loose 

opinion  on  the  subject  is  derived  from  observing,  that  in  the  day, 

the  air,  nearly  always,  has  an  inclination  to  come  up  the  river, 

or  to  traverse  it  from  side  to  side:    and  its  action  is  also  so  high 

as  to  be  seen  on  the  leaves  of  the  trees  when  the  surface  of  the 

water  is  entirely  unruffled.     Whereas,  at  night,  as  the  inclination 

of  the  air  is  always  down  the  river,  when  unaffected  by  storms ; 

and  as  the  volume,  density  and  weight  of  the  air,  are  augmented 

to  an  incalculable  degree,  by  the  absence  of  the  sun  and  the 

descent  of  his  exhalations,  it  may  be  presumed  that  these  great 


From  Pittsburg  to  Louisville  in  1806      259 

changes  in  the  direction  and  power  of  the  atmosphere  may 
operate  a  change  on  the  current  of  the  waters.  The  more  so 
as  it  is  known  that  the  air  and  body  of  vapour,  rejected  by  the 
sky  after  the  setting  of  the  sun,  seek  for  the  centre  of  rivers  and 
the  sinuosities,  occasioned  by  valleys  or  creeks.  This  body  of  air 
then  of  power,  course  and  volume,  so  superior  and  contrary  to 
that  of  the  day,  pressing  on  the  centre  of  the  river,  either  cause 
there  an  additional  current,  or,  by  some  secret  law  of  attraction, 
draws  the  current  of  the  day  from  the  side  to  the  centre.  I 
find  the  observation  made  by  all  navigators  to  be,  that  a  boat 
makes  much  more  way  at  night,  than  in  the  day;  and  that  it 
holds  the  middle  of  the  river.  You  perceive,  by  this  that  I  am 
supported  in  my  fact,  but  I  have  never  met  with  any  one  who 
could  assist  me  to  its  elucidation.  As  to  a  boat's  going  faster 
at  night,  I  am  not  quite  so  much  at  a  loss  for  an  argument; 
having  on  her  an  increased  weight  of  atmosphere,  and  a  course 
of  air  not  running  in  opposition  to  the  water,  she  must  proceed 
with  more  velocity  than  when  the  sun  deprives  her  of  this  pressure, 
and,  by  shifting  the  action  of  the  air  gives  her  a  contrary  im- 
petus. But  why  a  boat  holds  the  middle  of  the  river  at  night, 
in  an  apparent  current,  whose  principle  is  dissipated  on  the 
return  of  day,  I  cannot  determine;  and  what  I  have  said,  you 
are  to  consider  as  loose  hints,  and  not  as  the  result  of  syste- 
matic and  philosophical  opinion. 

The  second  alarming  peculiarity  belonging  to  nocturnal 
navigation,  is  in  the  falsity  of  vision,  and  in  the  little  dependence 
which  can  be  placed  on  the  judgment  in  regard  to  the  distance, 
character,  extent,  and  even  nature  of  objects.  I  have  heard 
of  a  man,  who  ran  his  boat  on  the  point  of  an  island,  mistaking 
it  for  an  object,  which,  for  upwards  of  an  hour  before,  he  had 
imagined  floating  before  him.  And,  more  than  once,  on  hearing 
the  roaring  of  water,  or  apprehending  some  other  danger  below 
me,  I  have  dropped  down  six  miles  while  pulling  for  safety  into 
a  shore  on  which  I  thought  I  could  have  cast  a  biscuit  when  I 
first  began  to  work  across  the  stream.  At  other  times  I  have 
been  greatly  deceived,  on  making  land  at  night,  as  to  my  opinion 
of  the  nearest  bank,  after  taking  the  nearest  for  the  most  distant, 
I  have  run  the  boat's  head  against  a  bank  I  calculated  far  from 


26o  The  Ohio  River 

me.  My  poor  Mandanian,  Cuff,  whom  I  have  more  than  once 
introduced  to  you,  seeing  me  perplexed  at  a  moment  of  ex- 
pected danger,  to  know  what  shore  to  pull  to,  jumped  on  the 
roof  of  the  boat,  and  giving  it  a  sudden  stroke  with  an  oar,  listen- 
ing to  the  returning  sound.  The  left  shore  first  repeated  the 
stroke;  and  next  after  a  small  interval,  the  right.  "The  left 
shore, "  said  Cuff,  with  a  modest  confidence,  "is  but  three  hundred 
yards,  and  the  right  a  mile  from  us."^  He  was  perfectly 
correct;  I  was  grateful  to  him  for  his  instructions,  nor  could 
I  check  an  idea,  that  the  whites  theorize  on  philosophy,  while 
it  is  practised  by  the  Indian:  neither  could  I  resist  looking  for 
further  instruction ;  and  asking  him  whether  his  rule  held  good 
on  all  occasions?  he  replied,  as  I  might  well  have  conceived, 
"It  did  not:  that  the  echo  in  some  few  parts  of  the  river,  never 
answered  at  all;  and,  that  in  damp  or  rainy  weather,  it  also 
failed  telHng  which  was  the  nearest  side."  I  am  confident, 
that  in  general  the  rule  is  good,  and  beneficial.   ,   .   . 

Having  lost  considerable  time  in  my  late  excursions,  I  being 
seduced  by  the  fineness  of  the  evening,  and  promised  lightness 
of  the  night,  determined  on  not  bringing  too  till  I  should  reach 
this  place.  I  therefore  continued  on,  past  Amberson's  Island, 
Goose  Island,  and  by  midnight  came  up  to  two  islands  which 
I  understood  to  be  but  half  a  mile  above  Letart's  Falls,  univer- 
sally feared  as  one  of  the  most  terrific  parts  of  the  navigation  of 
the  rivers.  The  roaring  of  the  falls  had  reached  us  sometime 
before  we  made  the  islands,  and  reflections  of  propriety,  safety, 
&c.  were  making  such  progress  in  my  mind,  that  I  began  to 
repent  of  my  determination,  and  to  feel  a  disposition  not  to 
proceed  any  further  till  morning.  Prudence  may  arrive  too 
late.  The  channel  past  the  islands  was  close  to  the  right  hand 
shore,  yet  I  dared  not  put  the  boat's  head  towards  it,  the  current 
being  impetus,  and  the  shore  full  of  trunks  of  trees,  breakers, 
and  snags.  Perceiving  obstructions  which  were  at  once  difficult 
and  arduous  to  remove,  I  made  preparations  to  shoot  the  falls. 
The  men  received  many  instructions  with  a  silence  which 
aur:ured  some  fear;  the  waters  uttered  the  most  tremendous 
sounds,  and  the  mist  of  their  dashing  rising  into  the  air  spread 

1  An  instance  of  Mr.  Ashe's  exaggerations;    the  Ohio  at  no  point  ap- 
proaches half  a  mile  in  width. 


From  Pittsburg  to  Louisville  in  1806     261 

an  apparent  fog  on  their  surface  from  side  to  side.  The  scene 
was  awful;  ther^  was  no  alternative.  I  took  the  helm  and 
placing  the  hands  on  each  bow  with  a  pole  to  guard  against 
rocks,  followed  the  current  to  the  second  island,  from  thence 
to  about  one  third  of  the  river  from  the  right  hand  shore,  and 
there  held  it  to  the  falls.  The  boat  took  chute  in  the  most 
capital  manner,  past  through  like  the  flight  of  a  bird  and  never 
once  turned  round.  In  taking  the  chute,  I  observed  a  sunken 
rock  to  my  right,  that  formed  a  very  large  ripple,  and  several 
others  to  my  left,  which  caused  the  water  to  boil  and  make  a 
grumbling  dull  noise.  Instantly  on  dropping  from  the  falls, 
it  was  necessary  to  take  to  the  oars,  to  avoid  an  eddy  of  great 
power  which  sucked  in  logs  and  everything  else  within  its 
attraction,  and  cast  them  up  about  two  hundred  yards  lower 
down. 

One  of  the  most  interesting,  unaffected  accounts 
of  a  voyage  down  the  Ohio  from  Pittsburg  is  that  of  a 
manuscript  Diary  of  a  girl,  Sally  Person,^  a  part  of 
which  reads: 

October  19,  18 18,  At  one  o'clock  came  into  the  famous 
city  of  Pittsburg.  Put  up  at  Solomon  Lightcaps  Market  street; 
bought  an  excellent  dinner;  stone  coal  burnt  here  entirely. 
0,  dear  how  it  stinks,  boys  slept  on  board  the  boat.  Put  all 
our  goods  on  board  fine  folks  here. 

Oct.  23,  Clear  and  cool,  at  two  o'clock  left  Pittsburg 
shore;  went  six  miles  and  anchored  not  quite  dark,  Margaret 
not  well,     frose  hard  at  night. 

24,  Clear  and  moderate,  we  ran  on  to  three  or  four 
piles  of  rocks;  I  thought  we  should  be  dashed  to  pieces  also 
ran  afoul  of  a  keel  boat,  but  with  all,  but  little  damage,  p.m. 
We  took  the  wrong  side  of  a  bar ;  got  aground  the  men  got  out 
into  the  river  and  lifted  but  could  not  start  us.  Near  to  a  house 
a  young  man  came  with  a  skiff  took  father,  all  the  women  and 
some  of  the  load  on  shore,  then  the  man  shoved  her  off,  women 
staid  in  the  house  till  dark  got  straw  to  fill  out  beds  and  milk 

>  Placed  in  the  author's  hands  through  the  kindness  of  Frank  Theodore 
Cole,  LL.B.,  editor  of  the  Old  Northwest  Genealogical  Quarterly. 


262  The  Ohio  River 

for  supper.       Margaret    staid    on    shore    all    night    very   clever 
folks;   name  McKee. 

25.  Clear  and  warm  got  along  safe  at  the  mouth  of  Beaver 
creek  went  on  shore;  got  a  Pilot;  women  got  out  and  walked, 
one  and  one  half  miles  on  the  beach,  when  the  Pilot  got  out, 
we  got  in.  Had  good  going  till  dark,  anchored  went  on  shore, 
got  milk  and  meal,  cabbage  beets  and  com  bread,  from  Mrs. 
Mitchel.     Frooze  hard  at  night. 

26.  Clear  and  warm.  Margaret  is  well  to-day.  Past  lit- 
tle Beaver  ripple,  rubbed  on  the  rocks  but  received  no  damage, 
rest  of  the  day  had  good  sailing,  got  into  the  state  of  Ohio  at 
twelve  o'clock.  Came  to  anchor  one  half  an  hour  after  dark; 
did  not  come  to  any  house. 

27.  Clear  and  cool  wind  ahead.  Mother  not  well; 
Margaret,  Fanny,  Father,  Hadley  and  I  got  on  shore  and  walked 
about  three  miles.  Saw  handsome  farms,  slept  in  a  house  till 
the  boat  came  up,  smart  woman ;  making  apple  sauce  and  drying 
apples,  went  on  board  again  at  the  head  of  Brown's  Island, 
rubbed  on  the  rocks  but  received  no  damage;  anchored  about 
sunset  at  Steuben ville;  sent  out  and  bought  bread;  heard 
from  Mr.  Smith.     Cloudy  at  night. 

28.  Clear  and  cool;  Mr.  T.  Smith  came  to  see  us. 
O  how  glad  we  were  to  see  him;  we  were  all  invited  and  went 
to  Smith's  were  well  treated;  glad  to  leave  the  river  and  the 
rocks,  water  so  low  that  we  can  not  go,  Miss  Teaf  came  in  and 
spent  the  evening. 

29.  Clear  and  warm,  we  got  two  barrels  of  water  and  did  a 
very  large  washing;   spent  the  evening  at  Miss  Teaf's. 

30.  Clear  and  warm,  opened  some  boxes  found  many 
things  wet  employed  ourselves  in  drying  and  repacking  them. 
P.M.  Johnson  and  Fanny  Mr.  Hadley,  John  and  Harriet  and  I 
went  across  the  river  into  Virginia,  went  up  a  steep  mountain 
into  a  dark  cave.  Called  at  the  cotton  factory  as  we  came 
back.     Spent  the  evening  at  Mrs.  Coopers. 

31.  A.  M.  Clear  and  warm.  p.  m.  Thunder  lightning 
and  rain.  Sam  set  out  for  Columbus.  Mr.  Smith's  four  sons 
come  from  Wheeling.     Glad  to  see  us. 

November    i.     Cool    and    cloudy    went    to    the    Methodist 


From  Pittsburg:  to  Louisville  in  1806       263 


^1 


meeting,  heard  a  sermon  from  Heb.  2,  6.  heard  noise  enough.  .  .  . 

4.  Cool  left  Steubenville  [by  land]  at  ten  o'clock,  left 
Mr.  Hadley,  Mr.  Smith's  folks  gave  us  all  presents;  parted 
with  sorrow;  found  good  roads  kept  on  the  bank  of  Ohio  went 
12  miles;  put  up  at  Piles. 

5.  Clear  very  warm,  left  river  road  past  through 
Warren,  a  small  town,  through  Mount  Pleasant,  a  small  town, 
mostly  brick  houses. 

It  is  remarkable  enough  that  Mr.  Ashe  omits  in  his 
account  a  reference  to  the  town  of  Gallipolis,  partic- 
ularly as  it  would  have  given  him  an  excellent  oppor- 
tunity to  indulge  in  his  favorite  pleasure  of  venting  his 
spleen  on  all  uninviting  aspects  of  American  civilization. 

In  any  work  on  the  Ohio  River,  or  for  that  matter 
on  the  history  of  the  West,  GalHpolis  deserves  more 
than  a  passing  notice.  Few  American  towns  have  a 
more  unique  history.  When  the  Ohio  Company  of 
Associates  made  their  purchase  from  the  United  States 
government  in  1787  of  lands  along  the  Ohio  River, 
which  we  have  described,  we  noted  that  an  additional 
tract  was  purchased  over  and  above  the  amount  desired 
by  the  Ohio  Company  on  the  guarantee  of  certain  New 
York  speculators  who  were  to  form  themselves  into  a 
Scioto  Compan}^  and  dispose  of  three  and  a  half  millions 
of  acres  of  the  purchased  lands.  A  part  of  this  land 
was  to  be  sold  to  immigrants  in  Europe  who  desired  to 
come  to  America. 

It  ought  to  be  said  in  this  connection,  though  few, 
if  any,  writers  have  alluded  to  it,  that  it  was  common 
at  that  early  time  to  send  to  Europe  to  get  pioneers  to 
settle  on  the  new  lands  of  the  West.  Governor  John- 
son of  Maryland  thus  populated  his  fine  Allegheny 
"Glades,"  and  Washington  more  than  once  took  up 


264  The  Ohio  River 

seriously  the  problem  of  sending  to  Europe  to  secure 
immigrants  to  grub  and  till  his  vast  landed  estate  west 
of  the  AUeghenies.^  It  was  not,  therefore,  all  out  of 
order,  as  has  sometimes  been  implied,  for  such  a  com- 
pany as  the  Scioto  Company  to  plan  to  seat  their  lands 
by  inducing  foreigners  to  buy  them. 

Joel  Barlow,  the  poet  of  the  Revolution,  was  un- 
fortunately selected  by  the  Scioto  Company  as  Euro- 
pean agent,  and  he  put  off  for  France,  where  the  state 
of  internal  affairs  was  such  as  to  promise  well  for  a 
company  desiring  to  secure  immigrants  to  America. 
In  Paris  Barlow  enlisted  the  co-operation  of  certain 
Frenchmen  who  became  stockholders  in  the  Company, 
and  after  a  year's  propaganda  matters  began  to  look 
up;  many  "locations"  were  sold  and  many  families 
were  preparing  to  emigrate.  A  financial  panic  swept 
New  York  and  ruined  those  most  closely  identified  with 
the  Scioto  Company  and  its  lands  reverted  to  the 
government.  Moreover  the  locations  sold  in  France 
lay,  by  a  mistake  in  estimating  the  probable  position 
of  the  western  boundary  line  of  the  seventeenth  range, 
in  the  Ohio  Company's  purchase  and  not  in  the  Scioto 
Company's — ^where,  nearly  opposite  the  mouth  of  the 
Great  Kanawha  River,  Barlow  had  asked  that  cabins 
for  at  least  an  hundred  immigrants  should  be  prepared 
in  advance. 

In  February,  1790,  about  six  hundred  immigrants 
set  sail  from  Havre  de  Grace  in  five  chartered  ships  for 
America,  and  in  three  months  arrived  at  Alexandria, 
Virginia.  Their  high  hopes  of  a  pleasant  future  were 
doomed  to  end  in  inexpressible  disappointment;  the 
lands  for  which  they  had  paid  hard-earned  savings  were 

'See  Jared  Sparks,  Writings  of  Washington. 


c 
a, 


O 


From  Pittsburg:  to  Louisville  in  1806       265 


& 


never  to  be  theirs,  partly  through  the  inefficiency  of 
Barlow,  partly  through  the  speculations  of  certain  of 
the  French  stockholders  of  the  Scioto  Company,  and 
partly  through  the  failures  already  described.  Through 
the  instrumentality  of  Colonel  Duer  the  homeseekers 
were  at  last  started  on  the  long  journey  across  the 
mountains,  and  a  large  number  of  the  entire  party 
reached  the  town  soon  to  be  known  from  them,  Galli- 
polis.  General  Putnam,  acting  on  request  of  Colonel 
Duer,  had  had  eighty  huts  erected  for  the  newcomers, 
the  vanguard  of  which  arrived  October  20,  1790. 

In  another  place  we  shall  call  attention  to  the 
mar\^ellous  race  mixture  that  Providence  strangely 
ordained  should  take  place  in  the  Ohio  Basin.  Though 
not  as  prominent  as  the  other  strains  of  blood,  this 
French  colony  at  Gallipolis  must  not  be  forgotten;  its 
sterling  citizens  took  a  part  in  the  great  work  of  empire 
building,  few  towns  of  equal  size  in  the  valley  giving  a 
better  quality  of  brain  and  brawn  to  the  work  than 
Gallipolis.  In  1795  Congress  did  itself  the  great  honor 
of  passing  the  "French  Grant"  Act.  By  it  24,000 
acres  were  to  be  distributed  among  all  Frenchmen  in 
Gallipolis  eighteen  years  of  age  and  over.  The  Ohio 
Company  in  the  same  year  was  equally  liberal,  and 
allowed  the  inhabitants  of  Gallipolis  to  purchase  the 
two  fractional,  sections  on  which  the  town  was  situ- 
ated at  a  nominal  price  per  acre. 

What  had  been  known  for  so  long  as  the  "Falls  of 
the  Ohio"  received  considerable  attention  from  Mr. 
Ashe,  and  his  description  of  them,  despite  exaggera- 
tions, is  undoubtedly  one  of  the  best  that  has  come 
down  to  us: 

The  first  intimation  I  had  of  the  approach  to  Louisville  was 


266  The  Ohio  River 

the  roaring  of  the  falls,  which  reached  me  at  the  distance  of 
fifteen  miles.  Four  miles  farther  on  gave  me  a  fine  view  of  the 
town  which  stands  about  two  miles  above  the  falls  on  the  Ken- 
tucky shore.  The  entire  coup  d'asil  is  very  grand,  but  the 
disposition  to  admire  is  drowned  in  the  murmur  of  the  waters, 
and  the  danger  it  announces  to  the  mind.  As  the  falls  cannot 
be  passed  without  a  pilot  and  a  number  of  extra  hands  to  govern 
the  helm  and  the  oars,  it  is  always  necessary  to  look  out  within 
five  or  six  miles,  and  pull  in  for  the  left  shore  before  there  is 
a  possibility  of  getting  into  the  suction  of  the  fall  stream,  and 
from  thence  into  the  vortex  of  the  flood.  By  my  not  attending 
to  this  in  time  I  was  very  near  perishing.  The  velocity  of  the 
water  increased;  the  uproar  of  the  falls  became  tremendous, 
and  nothing  but  the  continued  and  vigorous  exertion  of  the 
oars  saved  us  from  sudden  and  violent  perdition.  We  rowed 
one  hour  across  the  stream  and  got  into  dull  water,  but  five 
minutes  before  our  deaths  must  have  been  certain;  whereas 
had  I  pulled  in  on  seeing  the  town,  I  might  have  dropped  quietly 
down  along  the  bank,  and  enjoyed  the  grandeur  and  sublimity 
of  the  general  scene,  in  the  place  of  experiencing  so  much  labour 
and  apprehension. 

Having  secured  the  boat  in  the  mouth  of  Bear  Grass  Creek, 
I  walked  up  to  the  town  of  Louisville,  which  is  situated  on  a 
high  and  level  bank  of  the  Ohio,  about  two  hundred  poles  above 
the  commencement  of  the  rapid  descent  of  the  water,  and  con- 
tains about  eighty  dwellings,  besides  the  court-house  of  Jefferson 
county,  and  other  pubHc  buildings.  The  prospect  from  the 
town  is  very  extensive,  commanding  a  view  up  the  river,  for 
some  distance  above  what  is  called  Six  Mile  Island ;  and  on  the 
opposite  shore,  which  is  the  distance  of  one  mile  and  a  quarter, 
the  eye  is  carried  over  an  extent  of  level  country,  terminated 
by  the  hills  of  Silver  Creek,  which  are  five  miles  distant,  and 
down  the  river  to  Clarksville,  about  two  miles  below. 

Here  the  magnificence  of  the  scene,  the  grandeur  of  the 
falls,  the  unceasing  brawl  of  the  cataract,  and  the  beauty  of 
the  surrounding  prospect,  all  contribute  to  render  the  place 
truly  delightful,  and  to  impress  every  man  of  observation  who 
beholds  it  with  ideas  of  its  future  importance,  till  he  enquires 


A  Map  Circulated  in  France  by  Agents  of  the  Scioto  Company. 


From  Pittsburg  to  Louisville  in  1806      267 

more  minutely,  and  discovers  a  character  of  unhealthiness  in 
the  place,  which  forbids  the  encouragement  of  any  hope  of  its 
permanency  or  improvement.    .   .   . 

The  inhabitants  are  universally  addicted  to  gambling  and 
drinking.  The  billiard  rooms  are  crowded  from  morning  to 
night,  and  often  all  night  through.  I  am  the  more  concerned 
to  see  the  prevalence  of  these  vices,  as  I  experience  a  liberality 
and  attention  in  the  town,  which  has  given  me  an  interest  in 
the  general  welfare  of  its  people. 

I  visited  the  falls  of  the  Ohio  on  the  sand  side,  and  found 
them  occasioned  by  a  ledge  of  rocks  which  extended  quite  across 
the  river,  and  are  hardly  to  be  perceived  by  the  navigator  in 
times  of  high  freshes,  unless  by  the  superior  velocity  of  the 
vessel.  When  the  water  is  low,  as  it  is  at  this  period,  the  greater 
part  of  the  rock  becomes  visible,  and  then  the  passage  becomes 
highly  dangerous.  There  are  three  channels  in  the  rock  through 
which  the  water  passes.  The  rapids  descend  about  thirty  feet 
in  the  length  of  a  mile  and  a  half.  The  rise  of  the  waters 
does  not  exceed  twelve  or  fourteen  feet,  and  has  at  times  sunk 
to  ten  inches.  A  part  of  the  rock  remains  in  the  middle  of  the 
river  and  has  never  been  overflowed,  though  it  wastes  every 
day  by  the  constant  action  of  the  waters,  and  attrition  of  pebble 
stones  cast  up  by  the  impetuosity  of  the  current.  It  commands 
the  settlement  of  Louisville.  The  fort,  however,  is  situated 
at  the  head  of  the  falls. 

A  pilot,  for  the  safe  conduct  of  boats  through  those  falls, 
has  been  regularly  appointed  by  the  State;  he  is  answerable 
for  all  damages  sustained  through  his  neglect  or  bad  management. 
The  price  for  pilotage  of  all  kinds  are  regulated  by  the  same 
authority. — A  light  boat  can  pass  at  all  times  when  directed 
by  a  skilful  pilot;  and  if  it  should  be  found  necessary  to  unload 
at  Bear  Grass,  and  reload  below  the  falls,  the  portage  is  very 
inconsiderable,  being  only  two  miles. 

Notwithstanding  the  low  state  of  the  water,  and  the  imminent 
peril  of  the  passage,  I  determined  on  taking  the  chute  without 
further  delay,  and  lay  my  boat  up  below  the  falls,  while  I  re- 
turned to  the  town,  and  made  a  short  excursion  through  the 
country.     I  accordingly  sent  for  the  head  pilot.     He  informed 


268  The  Ohio  River 

me  that  he  feared  a  thunder  gust  was  collecting.  The  late 
violent  heats,  and  the  prognostics  declared  by  the  noise  of  the 
falls,  and  the  vapour  suspended  over  them,  were  strong  porten- 
tions  of  a  storm,  and  made  the  passage  too  hazardous  to  be 
taken  at  the  pilot's  risk.  Whenever  I  have  determined  on 
acting,  I  have  not  easily  been  turned  from  my  intentions.  This 
habit  or  obstinacy  made  me  persist  in  going,  and  I  told  the 
pilot  to  prepare  immediately,  and  that  I  would  take  the  con- 
sequence of  any  loss  on  my  own  head.  He  agreed  and  repaired 
to  my  boat  with  six  additional  hands,  and  I  shortly  followed 
him  accompanied  by  two  ladies  and  a  gentleman,  who  had 
courage  to  take  the  fall  out  of  mere  curiosity,  notwithstanding 
the  great  peril  with  which  the  act  was  allied.  We  all  embarked. 
The  oars  were  manned  with  four  men  each.  The  pilot  and  I 
governed  the  helm,  and  my  passengers  sat  on  the  roof  of  the 
boat.  A  profound  silence  reigned.  A  sentiment  of  awe  and 
terror  occupied  every  mind,  and  urged  the  necessity  of  a  fixed 
and  resolute  duty.  In  a  few  minutes  we  worked  across  the 
eddy  and  reached  the  current  of  the  north  fall,  which  hurried 
us  on  with  an  awful  swiftness,  and  made  impressions  vain  to 
describe.  The  water  soon  rushed  with  a  more  horrid  fury, 
and  seemed  to  threaten  destruction  even  to  the  solid  rock  which 
opposed  its  passage  in  the  centre  of  the  river,  and  the  terrific  and 
incessant  din  with  which  this  was  accompanied  almost  overcome 
and  unnerved  the  heart.  At  the  distance  of  half  a  mile  a  thick 
mist,  like  volumes  of  smoke,  rose  to  the  skies,  and  as  we  advanced 
we  heard  a  more  sullen  noise,  which  soon  after  almost  stunned 
our  ears.  Making  as  we  proceeded  the  north  side,  we  were 
struck  with  the  most  terrific  event  and  awful  scene.  The  ex- 
pected thunder  burst  at  once  in  heavy  peals  over  our  heads, 
and  the  gusts  with  which  it  was  accompanied  raged  up  the 
river,  and  held  our  boat  in  agitated  suspense  on  the  verge  of 
the  precipitating  flood.  The  lightning,  too,  glanced  and 
flashed  on  the  furious  cataract,  which  rushed  down  with  tre- 
mendous fury  within  sight  of  the  eye.  We  doubled  the  most 
fatal  rock,  and  though  the  storm  encreased  to  a  dreadful  degree, 
we  held  the  boat  in  the  channel,  took  the  chtite,  and  following 
with  skilful  helm  its  narrow  and  winding  bed,  filled  with  rocks, 
and  confined  by  a  vortex  which  appears  the  residence  of  death. 


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From  Pittsburg  to  Louisville  in  1806      269 

we  floated  in  uninterrupted  water  of  one  calm  continued  sheet. 
The  instant  of  taking  the  fall  was  certainly  sublime  and  awful. 
The  organs  of  perception  were  hurried  along,  and  partook  of  the 
turbulence  of  the  roaring  water.  The  powers  of  recollec- 
tion were  even  suspended  by  the  sudden  shock;  and  it  was 
not  till  after  a  considerable  time  that  I  was  enabled  to  look 
back  and  contemplate  the  sublime  horrors  of  the  scene  from 
which  I  had  made  so  fortunate  an  escape. 

When  in  smooth  water  and  my  mind  somewhat  collected, 
I  attended  to  the  ladies  who  had  the  temerity  to  honour  me 
with  their  company  through  the  hazard  of  the  falls.  I  found 
them  in  a  very  exhausted  state.  The  thunder  had  entirely 
unnerved  them.  I  must  do  them  the  justice,  however,  to  say 
that  they  shewed  great  magnanimity: — they  suppressed  their 
feelings,  and  never  uttered  a  cry,  for  fear  of  intimidating  or 
interrupting  the  hands.  On  getting  on  shore  they  quickly  re- 
covered, and  we  enjoyed  a  pleasant  walk  back  to  the  town,  and 
passed  the  evening  with  that  serene  delight  which  is  only  known 
to  those  who  have  experienced  an  equally  extraordinary  and 
eventful  day. 

Very  shortly  there  will  be  no  necessity  of  boats  encountering 
such  rocks.  A  canal  is  now  constructing  on  each  side  the  Ohio, 
by  which  means  vessels  may  descend  at  all  seasons,  and  without 
the  possibility  of  accident  or  danger.  For  some  time  back 
from  eight  to  twelve  boats  have  been  lost  annually,  and  many 
have  been  detained  for  want  of  water.  Therefore  the  canal 
must  j:)rove  a  grand  acquisition,  and  extend  benefit  far  and 
wide.  It  is  to  be  finished  in  two  years,  and  will  be  about  three 
miles  in  length. 

As  we  have  quoted  in  our  story  of  the  Revolutionary 
War,  Louisville  was  founded  by  a  few  families  that 
accompanied  George  Rogers  Clark  to  the  "Falls  of 
the  Ohio,  "  on  May  27,  1778.  Of  these  first  citizens  of 
Louisville,  who  boldly  erected  their  cabins  on  Com 
Island,  we  have  the  names  of  five:  James  Patton, 
Richard  Chenowith,  William  Faith,  John  Tewell,  and 


2/0  The  Ohio  River 

John  McManness ;  ten  other  heads  of  families  are  given 
by  Mr.  Durratt  in  his  The  Centenary  of  Louisville. 

When  General  Clark  returned  from  the  Vincennes 
campaign  he  took  up  his  residence  in  Louisville  and 
drew  a  plan  of  the  proposed  town  as  he  thought  it  ought 
to  be  built. 

From  his  little  red  room  in  the  Fort  [writes  Mr.  Durratt],  at 
the  foot  of  Twelfth  Street,  he  looked  far  into  the  future  and  saw 
the  need  of  public  grounds  for  breathing-places  when  the  city 
should  become  populous.  His  map  shows  all  the  ground  be- 
tween Main  Street  and  the  river,  from  First  to  Twelfth  streets, 
marked  "public."  Also  a  strip  of  ground  half  a  square  in 
width,  just  south  of  Jefferson  Street,  running  the  whole  length 
of  the  town,  marked  "public."  If  this  plan  of  the  town  had 
been  accepted  by  the  Trustees  and  adhered  to  by  their  suc- 
cessors, Luisville  would  be  one  of  the  handsomest  cities  on  the 
continent  to-day.  The  Trustees,  however,  for  want  of  capacity 
to  see  the  advantages  of  holding  property  for  the  public,  or  from 
necessity  to  pay  debts  against  it,  sold  all  this  property  except 
the  Court-House  square  and  the  grave-yard.  It  brought  but 
little  when  sold.  It  would  be  worth  millions  now  in  the  shape 
of  park  property,  with  a  number  of  grand  old  forest  trees  upon 
it.  This  map  of  General  Clark  only  extends  to  Jefferson  Street, 
but  tradition  says  that  it  was  a  part  of  his  plan  to  have  the 
strip  of  ground  it  shows  south  of  Jefferson  repeated  at  intervals 
of  every  three  squares  as  the  city  should  enlarge. 

In  1782  the  old  "Twelfth  Street  Fort,"  called  the 
White  Home,  gave  way  to  Fort  Nelson,  named  in  honor 
of  Governor  Nelson  of  Virginia  and  covered  an  acre  of 
ground  on  the  Ohio  shore  at  the  foot  of  Seventh  Street. 
This  was  one  of  the  strongest  fortifications  in  the  West 
and  was  used  until  Fort  Finney  was  built  across  the 
river  on  the  present  site  of  Jefferson,  Indiana,  probably 
in  1784.  General  Clark  has  his  headquarters  in  Fort 
Nelson ;  it  served  as  a  court-house  until  one  was  built, 
and  a  portion  of  it  served  as  a  jail. 


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Blockhouse  and  Log  Cabins  on  Com  Island,  1778,  First  Settlement  of 

Louisville,  Ky. 
From  a  grouiul-plan  by  George  R.  Clark. 


"r . 


From  Pittsburg  to  Louisville  in  1806     271 

The  appearance  of  the  site  of  Louisville  in  the  days 
of  Clark  was  not  inviting;  the  heavy  forests  of  oak, 
hickory,  walnut,  hackberry,  locust,  cherry,  maple, 
buckeye,  gum,  poplar,  and  sycamore  were  interrupted 
by  a  number  of  ponds;  one  of  these  stretched  from 
Sixth  Street  along  Jefferson  and  Market  to  Sixteenth 
Street;  it  was  "so  deep  that  horses  swam  in  it,"  writes 
Mr.  Durratt,  "and  its  bed  is  yet  visible  between  Market 
and  Jefferson  streets ' ' ;  the  fish  that  swam  in  these 
ponds  were  of  benefit  to  the  pioneers,  who  subsisted  to  a 
more  or  less  extent  iipon  them ;  on  the  other  hand,  the 
ponds  were  detrimental  to  the  health  of  the  citizens 
and  Louisville  early  acquired  the  unfortunate  repu- 
tation of  being  an  unhealthy  place. 

The  most  fatal  complaint  [writes  Dr.  M'Murtrie  in  1819] 
among  adults,  (exclusive  of  small  pox,)  is  a  bilious  remitting 
fever,  whose  symptoms  are  often  sufficiently  aggravated  to 
entitle  it  to  the  name  of  yellow  fever,  and  unless  some  speedy 
change  be  made  in  the  internal  regulations  of  the  town,  and  an 
efficient  police  established,  in  room  of  the  nominal  one  existing 
at  present,  that  pestilent  foe  may  be  expected  to  make  his 
appearance  every  summer,  as  a  native  bom  citizen  of  the  place. 
It  is  vain  and  useless  to  talk  of  establishing  lazarettoes  and 
quarantines,  to  prevent  the  importation  of  this  fell  destroyer 
from  abroad,  while  we  are  accumulating  at  home,  the  sources 
whence  he  springs.  During  the  months  of  July,  August,  and 
September,  so  strongly  are  the  inhabitants  of  this  and  the  ad- 
jacent towns,  predisposed  to  this  disease,  by  the  joint  influence 
of  climate,  and  the  miasm  of  marshes,  and  decayed  and  decay- 
ing vegetable  and  animal  matter,  that  they  may  be  compared 
to  piles  of  combustibles,  which  need  but  the  application  of  a 
single  spark  to  rouse  them  into  flame!  Let  me  not  be  accused 
of  alarming  people  unnecessarily,  for  I  write  this  under  a  solemn 
conviction  in  my  own  mind,  that  unless  greater  attention  be  paid 
to  cleanliness,  in  every  possible  way,  Louisville  cannot  long 
escape  a  signal  visitation  from  this  destroying  angel.     I  have 


272  The  Ohio  River 

repeatedly  seen  sporadic  cases  of  it,  but  fortunately  at  a  time  of 
year  when  there  existed  the  least  danger  of  its  spreading.  To 
affirm  that  Louisville  is  a  healthy  city,  would  be  absurd,  but  it 
is  much  more  so  than  the  thousand  tongues  of  fame  would  make 
us  believe,  and  as  many  of  the  causes  which  prevent  it  from 
becoming  perfectly  so,  can  be  removed,  a  few  years  hence  may 
find  the  favorable  alterations  accomplished,  and  do  away  the  gen- 
eral impression  of  its  being  the  grave-yard  of  the  western  country. 

In  1779  a  blockhouse  and  eighteen  log  cabins  of 
Clark's  men  on  Com  Island  contained  the  two  score  of 
inhabitants  of  infant  Louisville.  In  1780  the  popula- 
tion v^as  probably  upwards  of  one  hundred.  On  May  i  st 
of  this  year  a  petition  signed  by  thirty-nine  residents 
was  presented  to  the  Legislature  of  Virginia,  asking 
that  the  land  patented  by  Dr.  John  Connolly  ^ — who  had 
remained  faithful  to  his  British  King — be  confiscated 
then  and  there — ^be  confirmed  by  the  State.  The  Legis- 
lature granted  the  petition  and  passed  an  act  appropri- 
ating one  thousand  acres  of  Connolly's  land  for  the  town 
of  Louisville.  The  nine  original  Trustees  of  the  town 
were  John  Todd,  Jr.,  Stephen  Trigg,  George  Meriwether, 
George  Slaughter,  John  Floyd,  William  Pope,  Andrew 
Hines,  James  Sullivan,  and  Marsham  Brashears. 

In   1783  Daniel  Broadhead  opened  the  first  dry- 

>  "Dr.  John  Connolly,  who  was  the  first  owner  of  the  land  on  which 
our  city  was  laid  out,  must  always  be  an  interesting  character  to  Louis- 
villians.  He  was  a  bold,  shrewd,  and  unscrupulous  man;  but  neither  for 
these  nor  for  any  other  qualities  can  his  connection  with  the  origin  of  the 
city  of  Louisville  be  ignored.  He  was  bom  in  Lancaster  County,  Pennsyl- 
vania, toward  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  and  at  an  early  age  became 
connected  with  the  Royal  troops  as  Surgeon's  Mate.  For  this  service  he 
was  given  two  thousand  acres  of  land,  which  he  located  at  the  Falls  of 
the  Ohio.  He  .was  an  intriguer  by  nature,  and  when  Lord  Dunmore 
placed  him  in  charge  of  Fort  Pitt  he  soon  got  into  quarrels  which  led  to 
the  Indian  troubles  of  1774  and  the  battle  of  Point  Pleasant.  In  1775 
he  undertook  to  organize  a  band  of  Indians,  renegades,  and  tones,  to  be 
called  the  'Loyal  Foresters,'  to  be  used  against  the  revolting  Colonies  in 
the  West.     He  was  arrested  near  Hagerstown,  while  on  his  way  to  the 


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From  Pittsburg  to  Louisville  in  1806     273 

goods  store  at  Louisville  in  a  double  log  cabin,  with 
puncheon  floor  and  board  roof,  on  the  north  side  of 
Main  Street  between  Fifth  and  Sixth;  the  proprietor's 
only  opposition  in  the  business  was  from  John  Sanders 
who  anchored  his  flatboat  in  the  Ohio  at  the  comer  of 
Third  and  Main  streets  and  turned  it  into  a  store.  The 
foundation  of  the  tobacco  industry  of  Louisville  was 
laid  soon  after  the  establishment  of  the  town,  for  in 
1795  an  act  was  passed  suppressing  the  tobacco  ware- 
house owned  by  Colonel  John  Campbell  in  Shippingport 
and  establishing  in  its  place  a  new  one  located  near  the 
mouth  of  Beargrass  Creek,  where  inspectors  were  to  be 
appointed  by  law  and  their  inspections  governed  by 
law.  From  this  time,  therefore,  we  may  date  that 
policy  which,  protected  by  law  and  conducted  on  sound 
business  principles,  has  made  Louisville  the  largest  and 
most  important  of  tobacco  markets — a  market  in  which 
no  less  than  seventy  thousand  hogsheads  of  leaf  tobacco 
are  now  annually  sold.  At  about  the  same  time  the 
Trustees  issued  regulations  concerning  the  navigation 
of  the  "Falls";  what  was  known  as  a  Falls  Pilot  was 
established,  Captain  James  Patton  being  the  first  man 
to  hold  this  office  and  to  officially  take  a  boat  through 

West  to  execute  his  plans  with  his  instructions  from  Lord  Dunmore  con- 
cealed in  the  handle  of  his  portmanteau.  He  was  imprisoned  and  kept 
confined  until  the  Revolutionary  War  was  nearly  at  an  end.  Under  pre- 
tence of  looking  after  his  lands  at  the  Falls  of  the  Ohio,  he  was  in  Kentucky 
in  1788,  and  conferred  with  some  of  our  leading  citizens  about  help  from 
Great  Britain  for  the  Kentuckians  to  take  the  Spanish  possessions  at  the 
South  and  open  the  navigation  of  the  Mississippi  River.  He  was  one  of 
the  best  informed  men  of  his  times  about  western  lands,  and  had  in  mind 
the  seating  of  a  colony  in  this  region,  with  the  Falls  of  the  Ohio  as  head- 
quarters. It  was  with  this  view  that  he  located  his  two  thousand  acres 
at  the  Falls.  Lord  Dunmore  was  his  strong  friend,  and  there  is  no  cal- 
culating what  he  might  have  accomplished  had  not  the  Revolutionary 
War  broken  up  his  far-reaching  and  deep-scheming  plans." — The  Centen- 
ary of  Louisville. 

18 


274  \  The  Ohio  River 

the  rapids.  Louisville  had  its  first  policemen  in  1810; 
two  men  at  a  salary  of  $250  per  year  was  the  beginning 
of  the  police  department  which  now  costs  Louisville 
about  one  hundred  thousand  per  year.  The  first 
street  was  paved  in  18 13,  being  Main  Street  from  Third 
to  Sixth.  It  is  interesting  that  the  Trustees  of  Louis- 
ville managed  the  city  for  half  a  century  lacking  two 
years  and  all  the  laws  asked  of  the  Legislature  "would 
not  cover  the  space  upon  the  statutes  book  of  a  few 
ordinary  Amendments  to  a  modem  charter."  The 
last  act  of  the  Legislature  during  the  rule  of  the  Trustees 
was  the  addition  of  Preston's  tract — one  thousand 
acres  to  the  limits  of  the  city.  The  first  brick  house 
was  built  in  1789,  the  bricks  coming  on  a  flatboat  from 
Pittsburg.  The  first  newspaper,  The  Farmers'  Library, 
was  issued  by  Samuel  Vail  in  1801,  being  succeeded  in 
1 808  by  The  Louisville  Gazette.  A  Catholic  church  was 
built  in  181 1,  followed  by  a  Methodist  church  in  181 2, 
the  First  Presbyterian  Church  in  18 16,  and  Christ 
Church,  Episcopal,  in  1825. 

For  some  time  after  the  founding  of  the  city  lots 
on  the  principal  streets  sold  from  $700  to  $1400;  the 
price  did  not  advance  materially  until  181 2  when  a 
branch  of  the  State  Bank  of  Kentucky  was  established; 
lots  then  sold  at  upwards  of  five  thousand  dollars  each. 
"Owing,  however,"  wrote  Dr.  M'Murtrie  in  18 19,  "to 
the  pressure  of  the  times  from  banks,  rag-money 
speculators,  shavers,  et  id  omne  genus,  property  has 
lately  declined  in  value,  and  will  continue  to  do  so  until 
it  sinks  to  a  reasonable  and  proper  level." 

"The  Falls  of  the  Ohio,"  which  had  been  the  making 
of  Louisville,  contributed  very  largely  to  its  growth 
of  population  and  commercial  advance.     This  was  as 


From  Pittsburg  to  Louisville  in  1806     275 

true  in  the  days  of  the  barge  and  keelboat  as  in  the 
latter  day  of  the  steamboat.  Mr.  Cassady  informs  us 
that  during  the  three  months  ending  July  18,  1814, 
there  arrived  at  the  port  of  Louisville  twelve  barges  of 
524  tons  burden,  and  seven  keelboats  of  132  tons  bur- 
den; and  that  the  following  "is  a  manifest  of  cargoes 
delivered  by  these  boats  during  that  period": 

813  bales  Cotton,  438  hhds.  Sugar,  5  bbls.  Molasses, 

26  bbls.  and  kegs  fish,  1267  bbls.  Sugar,  128  bbls.  Coffee, 

28  cases  Wine,  12  Boxes      "  389  bags      " 

1  bbl.  "  I  bbl.  Fish  Oil,  5  cases  Preserves, 

I  bag  and  i  bbl.  Allspice,  2  bags  Pepper,  29  bbls.  Indigo, 

6  ceroons  Cochineal,  28  bales  Wool,  2  ceroons    " 

I  demij.  and  I  bbl.  lime  juice,     21      "      Hides  6  tons  Logwood, 

I  Bale  Bear  Skins,  453    "  "     dry,  18  000  lbs.  pig  cop'r 

28  boxes  Steel,  i  bbl.  Rice,  i  box  Crockery. 

The  probable  value  of  these  articles  was  estimated  at 

$266,015. 

Louisville's  reputation  as  a  liquor  emporium  was 

established  early  in  its  history,  and  it  is  of  particular 

interest  that  a  company  of  Yankees  incorporated  by 

Kentucky  in  1816,  as  the  "Hope  Distillery"  company 

with  a  capital  of  one  hundred  thousand  dollars,  erected 

a  plant  as  gigantic  in  its  proportions  as  the  ultimate 

failure  of  the  same  was  memorable.     It  was  supposed 

that  Louisville  could  sufficiently  command  the  grain 

fields  of  the  Ohio,  Kentucky,  Scioto,  and  Miami  riverS 

to  keep  a  great  distillery  supply,  and  that  everything 

being  done  on  a  large  scale,  expenses  would  be  lessened 

and  the  proceeds  proportionately  increased. 

My  feeble  voice  [wrote  Dr.  M'Murtrie  far  back  in  1819]  can 
be  but  of  little  utility,  in  preventing  the  erection  of  such  gi- 
gantic reservoirs  of  this  damning  drink!  I  cannot,  however, 
conclude  the  subject  without  hinting  to  those  instrumental 
thereto,  that  they  are  mere  manufacturers  of  poison  for  the 
hvmian  race,  by  no  means  slow  in  its  operation,   and  so  much 


2/6  The  Ohio  River 

the  more  dangerous  as  it  is  enticing. — But,  alas!  of  what  avail 
are  the  reasonings  of  the  philanthropist,  or  the  entreaties  of 
humanity,  in  opposition  to  the  commands  of  interest?  They 
are  as  chaff  before  the  whirlwind. 

The  population  of  Louisville  in  1800  was  600;  in 
1810,  1300;  in  1820,  4000;  in  1830,  10,000;  in  1840, 
21,000;  m  1850,  43,000;  the  valuation  of  property  at 
these  same  dates  was:  1800,  $91,000;  18 10,  $210,000; 
1820,  $1,600,000;  1830,  $4,300,000;  1840  (largely  fic- 
tious),  $13,000,000;  1850,  $13,300,000.  Louisville  now 
covers  an  area  of  twenty  square  miles  and  contains  a 
population  of  about  a  quarter  of  a  million;  its  net 
public  debt  is  $8,700,000  and  the  assessed  value  of 
its  taxable  property  is  $132,000,000,  with  the  tax  rate 
of  1.86. 

The  wealth  of  surrounding  wheat  fields  and  stock- 
yards has  been  the  making  of  the  splendid  city  in  our 
day,  as  the  ' '  Falls  of  the  Ohio ' '  were  the  making  of  it 
in  the  old  times.  During  the  ordinary  stage  of  water 
these  rapids,  to  which  it  is  believed  the  bold  La  Salle 
came  in  the  seventeenth  century,  are  the  only  obstruc- 
tion in  the  entire  Ohio  River.  When  the  river  was  low  a 
portage  around  the  falls  from  Louisville  to  Shippingport, 
as  the  town  below  the  rapids  is  known,  was  necessary, 
for  the  "  Falls  of  the  Ohio"  were  navigable  for  boats  of 
any  size  only  about  a  fourth  of  the  year.  At  a  very 
early  day  plans  were  considered  for  building  a  canal  on 
the  course  of  this  portage  path.  This  is  said  to  have 
been,  as  will  be  noted,  one  of  the  projects  of  the 
enterprising  Burr  when  he  entered  the  Ohio  Valley 
in  1806.  In  fact  a  company  was  incorporated  by  the 
Legislature  of  Kentucky  to  cut  a  canal  around  the  falls 
in  1804,  but  the  project  languished  for  some  years.  It 


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From  Pittsburg  to  Louisville  in  1806     277 

is  interesting  to  find  that  many  looked  with  disfavor 
upon  the  canal,  believing  that  Louisville  owed  her  birth 
and  growth  to  obstruction  of  navigation  at  that  point; 
and  when  the  canal  was  being  built,  the  wagoners  and 
cable  drivers,  who  had  made  a  living  in  the  carrying 
trade  across  the  two-mile  portage,  raised  as  long  and 
bitter  a  cry  as  the  teamsters  who  traversed  the  old 
path  through  the  pine  woods  between  Schenectady  and 
Albany,  in  New  York,  were  raising  at  the  same  time 
over  the  building  of  the  Erie  Canal.  The  Louisville 
teamsters  even  said  that  General  Clark  located  the 
city  at  that  point  for  the  purpose  of  enabling  them  to 
haul  passengers  and  freight  around  the  Falls  ! 

The  building  of  this  canal  was,  however,  of  as  great 
national  as  local  importance,  and  in  1810,  the  United 
States  government  authorized  a  national  subscription 
of  $150,000  toward  the  capital  stock  of  what  should  be 
known  as  the  Ohio  Canal  Company,  on  condition  that 
the  company  raised  an  equal  sum  for  the  work.  In 
1 81 5,  Kentucky  asked  the  interested  States  to  subscribe 
for  shares  in  the  canal  company,  Kentucky  having 
taken  a  thousand  at  fifty  thousand  dollars  and  reserved 
a  thousand  more  for  her  further  disposal.  The  Ohio 
Canal  was  planned  on  the  Kentucky  side  and  the  whole 
project  was  overturned  by  a  rival  plan  of  building  the 
canal  on  the  Indiana  shore;  parties  went  so  far  as  to 
incorporate  the  Indiana  Canal  Company.  The  rivalry 
aided  by  misrepresentation  and  arguments,  delayed 
the  work,  but  in  1825  the  Louisville  and  Portland 
Canal  Company  was  organized,  the  capital  stock 
being  taken  by  not  less  than  seventy  persons  in 
Kentucky,  Ohio,  Missouri,  New  Hampshire,  Massa- 
chusetts, New  York,  Pennsylvania,  and  Mar^dand;  1665 


2  78  The  Ohio  River 

shares  were  issued  to  private  individuals,  while  the 
United  States  government  took  2335  shares  at  a  thou- 
sand dollars  per  share.  It  required  five  years  of  hard 
work  to  build  the  canal  and  an  expenditure  of  $750,000, 
but  ten  days  before  the  end  of  the  year  1830,  the 
steamboat  Uncas  sailed  from  Louisville  to  Portland,  a 
port  at  the  lower  end  of  the  canal.  During  the  year 
1 83 1,  416  boats,  46  keelboats,  357  flatboats,  in  all 
76,000  tons,  passed  the  locks  of  the  Louisville  and  Port- 
land Canal. 

From  a  financial  standpoint  the  canal  was  a  great 
success — in  fact  one  of  the  greatest  "grafts"  of  the 
"good  old  days."  The  charges  imposed  on  passing 
boats  were  enormous;  a  $25,000  boat  of  three  hundred 
tons  plying  between  the  upper  and  lower  Ohio  for  five 
years  would  spend  an  amount  equal  to  her  cost  in 
lockage  at  Louisville.  "A  boat  of  190  tons,"  wrote  the 
citizens  of  Cincinnati  to  Congress  in  a  Memorial  of 
1844,  "owned  at  Cincinnati  has  been  in  the  habit 
of  making  her  trips  from  this  city  to  St.  Louis  and 
back  in  two  weeks,  and  has  passed  the  canal  jour 
times  in  one  month.  Her  toll  each  trip,  was  $114.00, 
and  her  toll  for  each  month  was  $456.00  or 
at  the  rate  of  $5,472  per  year,  which  is  nearly 
half  the  value  of  the  boat."  In  twelve  years  14,000 
steamboats  passed  through  the  canal,  together  with 
about  5000  keelboats  and  flatboats;  the  total  tonnage 
was  about  28,500,000  tons,  and  a  million  and  a  quarter 
dollars  had  been  expended  in  tolls.  In  these  years  the 
dividend  declared  on  the  stock  owned  by  the  United 
States  government  was  more  than  its  total  original  in- 
vestment. The  other  stockholders  had  their  proportion 
of  the  proceeds  of  this  notorious  monopoly.     In  our 


City  Hall,  Louisville,  Kentucky. 


From  Pittsburo;-  to  Louisville  in  1806     279 


C) 


day  when  the  cry  of  monopolies  rings  loudly  over  the 
land  it  is  interesting  to  read  of  this  "hold-up"  proposi- 
tion in  which  the  United  States  government  held  two 
thirds  of  the  stock. 

The  new  Louisville  and  Portland  Canal  was  built 
in  1872,  and  in  response  to  a  vigorous  demand  on  the 
part  of  the  public  the  canal  was  purchased  by  the 
government  in  1874.  The  total  cost  of  the  canals,  old 
and  new,  was  about  four  and  one  half  millions.  The 
canal  is  now  a  free  canal.  From  1886  to  1901,  14,000,- 
000  of  tons  of  freight  passed  through  it;  during  the 
past  year  the  traffic  tonnage  was  about  a  million  and 
a  half. 


Chapter  XII 
Blennerhassett's  Isle  de  Beau 

THE  largest  island  in  the  Ohio  River  lies  a  mile 
below  Parkersburg,  W.  Va.,  and  the  mouth 
of  the  Little  Kanawha  River.  From  the  be- 
ginning it  has  borne  several  names  but  for 
the  last  hundred-odd  years  it  has  borne  but  one,  the 
ill-fated  name  of  Blennerhassett. 

The  romantic  tragedy  of  Blennerhassett  Island  has 
been  given  to  the  world  on  a  thousand  pages ;  and  while 
it  would  be  inappropriate  not  to  sketch  it  here  again, 
we  will  do  so  with  a  purpose  not  before  essayed — that 
of  allowing  the  romance  to  interpret  certain  of  the 
phases  of  the  history  of  the  Ohio  River  which  have 
been  treated  in  preceding  pages.  The  real  story, 
shorn  of  its  glittering,  tinselled  fabrications,  contains 
an  object-lesson  in  western  history  that  has  been  ignored 
in  inverse  ratio  to  its  inherent  value.  The  romantic 
and  unusual  features  of  the  story  serve  the  admirable 
purpose  of  embalming  and  saving  a  number  of  facts 
and  suggestions  that  enable  us  to  form  a  more  perfect 
picture  of  the  Ohio  Valley  in  the  first  decade  of  the 
nineteenth  century  than  is  possible  in  the  case  of  any 
other  single  historical  episode. 

The  story  of  Blennerhassett  Island,  for  instance, 

illustrates  the  experiences  of  an  emigrant  in  making  a 

pioneer  settlement  in  this  valley;  again,  it  shows  the 

280 


Blennerhassett's  Isle  de  Beau  281 

character  of  the  poHtical  unrest  in  the  day  before  any- 
real  unification  of  the  West  and  the  East  had  dawned ; 
it  illustrates  that  fervent,  lawless  type  of  patriotism 
with  which  the  first  western  settlers  were  sternly  im- 
bued ;  it  is  full  of  help  in  making  us  able  to  understand 
to  some  degree  the  nature  and  passion  for  land  specula- 
tion, the  rowdy  element  in  the  valley,  the  fiatboat  days, 
the  character  of  the  infant  Ohio  Valley  settlements, 
in  short,  the  whole  of  the  rude  conditions  of  the  life  of 
the  times. 

Those  who  have  followed  the  present  record  thus 
far  can  very  well  appreciate  that  all  land  in  the  valley 
had  been  "taken  up"  somewhat  before  the  end  of  the 
eighteenth  century;  all  the  land  on  the  Virginia  side 
had  been  claimed,  probably,  by  1780,^  and,  beginning 
with  the  Marietta  and  Cincinnati  settlements  in  1788, 
the  Ohio  and  Indiana  shore  was  doubtless  in  some 
settler's  or  speculator's  hands  by  1796. 

In  that  year  the  Irish  emigre  whose  name  will  for- 
ever be  remembered  in  the  West  came  to  America. 
Harman  Blennerhassett  was  descended  from  the 
choicest  Irish  stock ;  his  blood  could  be  traced  back  to 
the  times  of  King  John.  He  was  one  of  three  sons  bom 
to  noble,  wealthy  parents  residing  at  Conway  Castle, 
Kerry  County,  Ireland.  The  year  of  his  birth  is  in 
dispute,  but  it  is  sure  that  it  fell  in  the  year  1764  or 
1765  at  Hampshire,  England,  w^here  his  mother  was 
visiting.  As  the  youngest  son  he  was  destined  to  learn 
a  profession  and  his  education  was  well  attended  to. 

>As  early  as  1773  William  Crawford  wrote  George  Washington, "All  the 
land  on  the  Virginia  shore  of  the  Ohio  worth  anything  is  already  sur- 
veyed."— C.  W.  Butterfield,  The  Washington-Crawford  Correspondence,  pp. 
39;  42.  Wehaveseen  (p  97)  that  Washington  left  record  in  1770  that 
the  Virginian  pioneers  were  expected  to  reach  the  Great  Kanawha  by  1 7  7 1 . 


282  The  Ohio  River 

When  young  he  was  placed  in  the  celebrated  school  at 
Westminster,  England,  and  later  he  entered  Trinity 
College,  Dublin,  from  which  he  was  graduated,  sharing 
honors  with  his  lifelong  friend,  the  distingmshed  Irish 
patriot  and  orator,  Thomas  Addis  Emmet.  Leaving 
Trinity,  Blennerhassett  continued  his  law  studies  at 
King's  Inn  Courts,  Dublin,  and  was  admitted  to  prac- 
tise at  the  Irish  bar  in  1790.  He  rounded  out  his 
education  by  a  continental  tour,  visiting  the  Nether- 
lands and  arriving  in  France  in  the  summer  of  1790, 
at  the  period  when  that  nation  had  been  rocked  in  the 
arms  of  revolution.  This  revolutionary  spirit  was 
quickly  imbibed  by  a  disciple  of  Rousseau  and  one 
thoroughly  acquainted  with  Voltaire,  and  Blenner- 
hassett returned  to  his  native  country  with  a  feeling  of 
genuine  sympathy  for  republicanism.  But  he  cared 
not  for  political  or  social  honors  and  strove  to  keep 
aloof  from  all  party  affiliation.  The  quiet  and  retire- 
ment for  which  he  yearned  was  sought  for  in  vain  in  a 
country  thoroughly  awakened  to  revolt,  so  he  disposed 
of  his  estate  and  started  for  Kingsdale  where  his  sister, 
the  wife  of  Baron  de  Courcey,  resided. 

Although  Blennerhassett  was  closely  allied  to  the 
nobility  of  Ireland  and  England  he  looked  with  longing 
toward  the  free  America  which  had  but  recently  shaken 
off  the  identical  yoke  under  which  his  mother-country 
— Ireland — ^was  now  groaning,  and  he  made  haste  to 
England  where  he  completed  preparations  to  transfer 
his  property  to  America.  His  estates  had  yielded  him 
a  fortune  of  one  hundred  thousand  dollars.  A  share 
of  this  was  invested  in  a  library  and  chemical  and  philo- 
sophical apparatus.  At  this  time  Blennerhassett  was 
married  to  Miss  Agnew,  daughter  of  the  Lieutenant- 


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Blennerhassett's  Isle  de  Beau  283 

Governor  of  the  Isle  of  Man,   and  granddaughter  of 
the  celebrated  General  Agnew  who  fell  at  the  battle  of 
Germantown,  much  against  the  wishes  of  her  parents 
who  practically  disinherited  her  for  the  act.     Being 
endowed  with  a  surprising  degree  of  energy  and  of  a 
romantic  nature  however,  Mrs.  Blennerhassett  listened, 
with  delight,  to  his  tales  of  the  far-off  America  and  did 
not  hesitate  to  link  her  destiny  with  his ;  aHenated  from 
her  home  the  prospect  of  emigration  came  as  a  relief 
so  with   wife,  library,  and  apparatus,   Blennerhasset ; 
set  sail  for  New  York  in   1796.     During  the  several 
months  that  the  couple  remained  in  New  York  they 
were  received  by  the  first  American  families — "more 
in  a  parental  and  brotherly  way  than  in  a  manner  you 
would  call  polite  and  elegant,"  as  he  wrote  to  England. 
But  Blennerhassett  had  not  come  across  the  waters  to 
seek  social  distinction,  and  the  reports  of  the  quiet, 
fertile  country  west  of  the  Alleghenies,  where  "first 
families"  and  social  distinctions  were  not  known,  were 
more  alluring  to  him  than  anything  New  York  had  to 
offer;  so,  in  company  with  his  wife,  Blennerhassett  set 
out    westward.     After    a    tedious    trip    they    reached 
Pittsburg  in  the  fall  of  1797,  and  at  once  embarked  in 
a  keelboat   for  Marietta — ^the  oldest  and   one  of  the 
most  important  towns  on  the  Ohio.     Here  they  spent 
the  winter  of  1797  and  1798,  feeling  much  at  home  amid 
the  general  culture  and  intellectuality  of  the  Mariet- 
tians,  the  descendants  of  the  sturdy,  puritanical  stock 
of  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut.     They  decided  to 
abandon  their  former  plan  of  looking  for  land  in  the 
States  of  Kentucky  and  Tennessee  and  resolved  to 
locate  amid  this  enterprising  settlement. 

Lacking  any  complete  information  on  the  subject, 


284  The  Ohio  River 

there  is  no  ground  for  speculating  on  the  practicability 
of  Blennerhassett's  plan  of  removal  to  America  or  of  his 
adventuring  into  the  Ohio  Valley.  The  moment,  how- 
ever, that  he  arrives  here  and  begins  the  work  of  select- 
ing and  building  a  home  we  are  forced  to  the  conclusion 
that  he  was  everything  that  a  level-headed,  practical 
man  could  not  be.  It  is  as  difficult  for  the  fair-minded 
student  to  retain  any  respect  for  the  Irish  immigrant  as  it 
is  to  treat  respectfully  some  of  the  commonly  accepted 
accounts  of  those  who  have  written  most  about  him. 
The  most  absurd  stories  have  been  circulated  by  writers ; 
some  of  these  have  been,  seemingly,  as  gullible  as  was 
Blennerhassett  when  they  say  he  paid  a  laborer  five 
times  the  rightful  price  for  collecting  mussel-shells  along 
the  shore  of  the  Ohio  because  the  man  averred  he  had 
to  dive  into  fifteen  feet  of  water  to  gather  them !  Several 
such  chroniclers  assert  that  Blennerhassett  could  repeat 
the  entire  Iliad  "in  the  original  Greek." 

In  casting  about  for  a  "seat"  the  immigrant  at  first 
chose  the  beautiful  height  known  to-day  as  Harmar 
Hill  which  overlooks  the  Ohio  and  Muskingum  at 
Marietta.  The  difficulty  of  access,  however,  is  given 
as  his  reason  for  a  change  of  plan.  It  is  doubtful  if 
that  was  the  real  reason,  because  he  immediately  chose 
another  site  infinitely  more  difficult,  the  island  twelve 
miles  below  Marietta  which  will  ever  bear  his  name. 
The  chimerical  nature  of  the  island  proposition  seems 
to  have  fascinated  the  eccentric  young  man — for  he 
was  hardly  out  of  the  twenties  at  the  time.  The  island 
in  question  bore  the  name  of  Backus  from  its  owner, 
Elijah  Backus  of  Marietta,  editor  of  the  Ohio  Gazette 
and  the  Territorial  and  Virginia  Herald.  It  has  been 
said  that  Washington,  in  his  tour  of  1770,  included  this 


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Blennerhassett's  Isle  de  Beau  285 

island  in  one  of  his  ' '  tomahawk  claims, ' '  but  this  is  only 
a  rumor;  the  island,  though  the  largest  in  the  river,  is 
not  mentioned  in  his  journal  of  his  trip.^  It  was 
patented  in  1786  by  Alexander  Nelson,  Governor 
Patrick  Henry  signing  the  patent.  Mr.  Backus  pur- 
chased it  in  1 792  from  one  James  Heron  (agent  ?),  paying 
$883.33  for  the  297  acres  it  contained.  Blennerhas- 
sett  bought  a  one  hundred-and-seventy-acre  tract 
(the  upper  end  of  the  island),  paying  four  thousand  five 
hundred  dollars  for  it — truly  an  enterprising  Yankee 
bargain!  What  had  been  an  old  blockhouse  cabin 
during  the  Indian  War  stood  on  the  portion  that  Blen- 
nerhassett  bought,  and,  in  1798,  the  year  of  the  pur- 
chase, the  imigrant,  wife,  and  servants,  moved  into  these 
temporary  quarters. ^ 

Backus  Island  was  as  picturesque  to  the  eye  as  it 
was  impracticable  for  a  homestead  at  that  time  ^ ;  its 
beauty  entranced  the  idealistic  immigrant,  who  named 
it  Isle  de  Beau;  yet  he  could  have  gone  only  half  that 
distance  from  Marietta  and  found  as  beautiful  a  loca- 
tion and  one  far  more  accessible.  Also,  in  descending 
the  Ohio  to  these  island  acres,  he  quite  passed  out  of  the 
range  of  convenient  intercourse  with  the  New  Eng- 
landers  among  whom  (his  biographers  affirm)  he  was 
disposed  to  associate,  and  became  a  citizen  of  Virginia. 
It  is  probable,  however,  that  the  Blennerhassetts  were 
decidedly  inclined  toward  the  social  caste  of  the  slave 

>  See  pages  96-98. 

2  Our  facts  are  drawn  largely  from  the  most  extensive  account  of 
Blennerhassett  Island  in  print,  namely,  Alvaro  F.  Gibbens's  Historic 
Blennerhassett  Island  Home  (Parkersburg,  1899). 

3  The  island  to-day  is  sometimes  entirely  submerged  at  flood-tide  to 
the  depth  of  fifteen  feet;  and  the  floods  of  to-day  surely  are  not  much 
greater  than  those  of  a  century  ago. 


286  The  Ohio  River 

State  than  otherwise.  It  seems,  therefore,  that  they 
did  not  at  all  pause  here  on  the  Ohio  because  of  the  New 
England  settlement,  but  simply  because  they  decided 
they  might  go  farther  and  fare  worse.  At  the  price, 
and  under  the  circumstances,  Isle  de  Beau  assumes  the 
gorgeous  tints  of  a  golden  brick — without  straw. 

The  lack  of  straw  becomes  plain  in  a  short  space  of 
time.  Between  1798  and  1800  a  mansion  was  built  by 
Colonel  Jos.  Barker,  a  resident  on  the  Muskingum 
near  Marietta,  and  in  the  building  of  it  the  young 
couple  were  exceedingly  happy. 

To  this  accomplishment  [writes  the  island's  historian,  Mr. 
Gibbens]  many  hands  were  requisite,  in  addition  to  the  con- 
tractors, house-carpenters  and  the  laborers,  the  ten  negro 
servants  he  had  purchased  as  grooms,  waiters  and  watermen. 
Forest  trees,  the  growth  of  years  innumerable  *  were  uprooted, 
boughs  and  trunks  burned  or  conveyed  away,  and  the  inequalities 
of  ground  surface  were  smoothed  and  changed  in  accordance 
with  artistic  taste.  The  giant  trees,  save  here  and  there  re- 
served ones,  together  with  underbrush  which  might  obstruct 
the  delightful  view  to  the  traveller  descending  Ohio's  current, 
were  removed  from  the  broad  front  of  the  upper  portion  of  the 
sand-pebbled  gently-sloping  head  of  the  island.  Elms,  syca- 
mores, and  cottonwoods  were  sacrificed  'neath  the  strokes  of 
the  woodman's  axe,  that  better,  grander  view  might  be  had  of 
the  palatial  mansion,  which  he  had  painted  an  alabaster  whiteness. 

Colonel  Joseph  Barker,  of  Marietta,  who,  a  few  years  after, 
in  1803,  built  a  brigantine  and  named  it  Dominic,  for  Blenner- 
hassett's  oldest  son,  was  the  principal  architect  of  this  uniquely 
planned  residence  of  costly  beauty.  An  exterior  view  is  given 
in  the  cut  presented.  Springing  up  at  that  era  of  primitive 
cabins,  in  almost  a  wilderness,  which  had  just  emerged  from 
the  perils  of  Indian  warfare  and  the  presence  of  ferocious  game, 
it  was  like  a  creation  of  magic,  a  revelation  of  paradise  in  a 

1  The  island  contains  some  magnificent  specimens  of  sycamores  to-day; 
one  of  these  measures .  close  to  the  ground,  over  forty-five  feet  in  circum- 
ference. 


Blennerhasset's  Isle  de  Beau  287 

"boundless  contiguity  of  shade"  and  unadorned  nature.  The 
cost  of  the  princely  building,  remote  from  the  marts  of  industry 
and  art,  was,  it  is  said,  in  excess  of  a  half  hundred  thousand 
dollars.  The  exterior  improvements  of  walks,  lawns,  shrubbery, 
orchards,  flowers  and  clearing  of  an  hundred  acre  farm  below 
the  structure,  doubtless  added  ten  thousand  more,  the  entire 
expenditure  of  which  among  farmers,  mechanics  and  laborers 
was  an  appreciated  benefit  where  money  was  scarce  and  oppor- 
tunities to  earn  it  few  indeed. 

No  expense  was  spared  in  the  construction  and  decoration, 
which  might  impart  splendor,  usefulness,  or  convenience.  The 
main  building  fronted  the  east  and  was  two  stories  high,  fifty- 
two  feet  in  length  and  thirty  feet  in  width.  Across  the  front 
a  deep  portico  extended,  and  thence  on  either  side  in  circular 
wings,  single  stories  forty  feet  in  length,  connected  the  prin- 
cipal or  centre  building  with  buildings  on  the  north  and  south 
sides,  each  also  facing  the  east,  and  being  twenty-six  feet  in 
length  and  twenty  feet  in  depth  and  two  stories  high.  The 
entire  structure  formed  half  of  an  ellipse,  with  frontage  of  one 
hundred  and  four  feet,  exclusive  of  the  circular  porticoes,  or 
promenade  extensions.  The  right  hand  wing  was  used  for 
library,  philosophical  apparatus,  laboratory  and  study;  the 
left  appropriated  to  an  occupancy  by  the  servants.  The  united 
taste,  culture  and  consultation  of  the  Blennerhassett  pair 
brought  finishing,  furnishing  and  furniture  of  every  apartment 
in  harmony  and  unison  with  a  matured  plan  and  ideal.  The 
furniture,  the  best,  latest  and  richest,  in  every  room,  was  brought 
from  the  East  by  wagon,  through  Pittsburg,  and  thence  down 
the  Ohio  by  barge  and  keel,  and  was  selected  to  please  the  eye 
and  add  luxurious  comfort  and  convenience  to  family  and 
numerous  guests. 

The  hall,  a  spacious  room,  was  painted  sombre  color,  with 
cornice  of  plaster,  bordered  with  moulding  of  gilt,  extending 
around  the  lofty  ceiling,  with  rich,  heavy  furniture  to  corre- 
spond. The  drawing-room  contrasted  with  the  hall  in  having 
furniture  light  in  hue  and  structure,  and  elegant,  with  gay  carpets 
splendid  mirrors,  rich  curtains,  classic  pictures  and  artistic  orna- 
ments.    The    side-boards — with    decanters    and    wine    glasses. 


288  The  Ohio  River 

indispensable  to  Virginia  hospitality  in  early  times — ^were  graced, 
as  were  the  tables,  by  a  liberal  supply  of  silverware.  The  finest 
taste  in  all  the  interior,  as  well  as  beauty  of  the  exterior  surround- 
ings,indicated  the  refinement  of  owner  and  hostes,  and  the  pos- 
session and  enjoyment  of  the  finest  estate  in  the  Virginia  section  of 
the  Western  world,  compensated  them  partly  for  the  absence 
and  immigration  from  associates  and  heritage  in  the  older 
land  across  the  wide,  wide  sea. 

Passing,  the  question  whether  this  description  is 
overdrawn,  there  is  no  question  but  that  every  descrip- 
tion of  its  mistress  is  fairly  true  to  hfe.  Mrs.  Blenner- 
hassett,  perhaps  more  graceful  than  beautiful,  was  fit 
to  rule  in  the  best  mansion  in  the  West.  To  her  out- 
ward charm  of  manner  there  was  added  much  faith  and 
devotion,  in  small  things  as  well  as  in  great,  to  her 
family  and  its  best  interests.  She  was  a  brilliantly 
active  girl ;  and  if  one  prefers  to  believe  that  she  cleared 
"a  five-rail  Virginia  fence  at  a  single  bound"  as  infre- 
quently as  her  husband  repeated  the  entire  Iliad  in  the 
Greek,  it  will  not  be  questioned  that  she  was  a  marvel- 
lously good  and  sweet  mother,  hostess  and  friend.  The 
late  Maria  P.  Woodbridge  of  Marietta  has  asserted 
that  Mrs.  Blennerhasset,  for  instance,  "introduced 
vaccination  in  the  West.  In  New  York  her  children 
were  vaccinated.  She  preserved  the  vims,  invited 
parents  to  send  their  little  ones  to  the  island,  and 
successfully  performed  the  operation.  One  of  the 
children  long  recollected  the  beautiful  Mrs.  Blenner- 
hassett.  Admiration,  love  and  respect  and  sympathy 
are  felt  for  her  as  we  follow  her  changing  life  from 
happy  gaiety  to  lonely  death  in  a  New  York  garret. "  ^ 
One  of  the  Blennerhassett  children,  Dominic,  was  born 

»  "The   Latter  Days  of  the   Blennerhassetts."  LippincoU's  Magazine, 
Feb.,  1879. 


>// 


■  I  0t 


I 


Blennerhassett's  Isle  de  Beau  289 

in  the  blockhouse  in  1799;  a  second,  Harman,  Jr.,  was 
bom  in  the  newly  completed  mansion  in  1801. 

For  six  years  the  life  of  the  Blennerhassetts  was, 
seemingly,  very  happy;  if  their  island  was  not  the 
Eden  so  many  have  pictured  it,  there  are  few  hints  of 
the  sad  ending  of  the  strange  drama — though  the  fickle 
husband  was  ever  an  element  of  uncertainty.  It  was 
not  at  all  out  of  the  range  of  possibility  that  his  head 
would  be  turned  by  almost  any  chance  adventurer 
armed  with  both  chivalry  and  sagacity. 

Aaron  Burr  was  such  a  man;  and  this  Catiline  of 
American  politics  wrought  the  ruin  of  this  weak  Irish- 
man in  a  very  short  space  of  time.  In  1805  Burr  en- 
tered the  Ohio  Valley,  lacking  one  year  of  being  fifty 
years  of  age.  He  had  run  his  meteoric  course  as 
Revolutionary  soldier,  member  of  New  York  House  of 
Representatives,  Attorney  General  of  New  York, 
Commissioner  of  Revolutionary  Claims,  Senator  from 
New  York  from  1791  to  1797,  Vice-President  of  the 
United  States  from  1801  to  1804,  defeated  candidate 
for  Governor  of  New  York,  and  murderer  of  Alexander 
Hamilton.  So  far  as  native  ability,  personal  magnetism, 
and  lack  of  conscience  were  concerned  he  was  a  great 
enough  man  to  have  been  guilty  of  any  of  the  crimes 
his  fiercest  enemies  ever  accused  him  of  plotting;  at 
the  same  time  he  was  shrewd  and  brilliant  and  popular 
enough  to  have  been  able  to  escape  conviction  of  any 
crime.  We  shall  not  attempt  here  to  sound  his  un- 
fathomable "designs"  as  he  entered  the  Ohio  Valley, 
but,  rather,  attempt  merely  to  sketch  his  influence  on 
the  residents  of   Blennerhassett  Island  and  the  result. 

Burr  was  ambitious  and  without  financial  resources. 
He  was  quite  detested  in  the  East  and,  in  a  like  measure, 


iq 


k 


290  The  Ohio  River 

was  idolized  in  the  West.  The  entire  West  and  South 
accepted  the  outcome  of  the  Burr-Hamilton  duel  as 
honorable  to  all  concerned,  and  extolled  Burr  in  pro- 
portion as  the  East  maligned  him.^  Failing  in  his  am- 
bition to  become  Governor  of  New  York,  Burr  showed 
his  prescience  by  turning  his  face  westward.  His 
political  prestige  gone,  little  was  left  to  him — few 
friends  and  less  fortune — unless  it  was  in  the  West. 
So  long  as  the  reign  of  the  rowdy  and  outlaw  lasted 
there  he  had  friends;  and,  so  far  as  fortune  was  con- 
cerned, when  all  other  enterprises  failed,  who  could 
not  launch  a  land  company? 

The  nominal  purpose  of  Burr's  western  tour  was 
to  see  the  country  and  interest  people  in  an  investment 
in  land  on  the  Washita,  a  tributary  of  the  Red  River. 
"His  chief  power,"  it  has  been  said  of  Burr,  "consisted 
in  his  skill  in  enlisting  the  good  will  and  sympathy  of 
those  with  whom  he  came  into  contact.  "^  It  seems,  also, 
that  there  was  a  more  or  less  well-defined  arrangement 
between  Burr  and  General  James  Wilkinson,  Major- 
General  of  the  United  States  Army,  either  to  provoke 
an  outbreak  between  Spain  and  the  United  States  on 
the  Mississippi,  or  at  least  to  take  advantage  of  an  out- 
break provided  one  should  occur.  The  nature  of  this 
understanding  was  such  that  it  was  easy  for  any  one, 
knowing  about  it,  to  infer  that  Burr  and  Wilkinson 
were  not  faithful  to  their  country.  What  may  have 
been  only  a  speculation  contingent  on  certain  given 
developments  came  to  be  thought  to  be  Burr's  deeply 

»  "In  the  Far  West  beyond  the  Alleghenies  and  in  some  parts  of  the 
South,  Burr  gained  a  positive  increase  of  popularity  by  the  duel." — 
James  Parton,    The  Life  and  Times  of  Aaron  Burr  (New  York,   i860), 

350- 

2  American  Cyclopedia. 


Blennerhassett's  Isle  de  Beau  291 

plotted  act  of  treason.  And  the  difficulty  was,  few 
men  lived  who  could  give  Burr  the  benefit  of  any 
doubt.  Suppose,  for  instance,  that  Burr  planned  a 
land  investment  on  the  Washita;  the  whole  country 
at  that  time  anticipated  a  war  with  Spain ;  it  necessarily 
followed  that  all  who  were  to  be  moved  to  invest  money 
in  the  land  enterprise  must  be  made  to  see  that  the  out- 
break of  such  a  war  would  be  a  benefit  and  not  an 
injury.  It  was  natural,  therefore,  that  Burr  should 
emphasize  to  all  the  military  possibilities  in  such  a  case. 
His  enemies  were  not  slow  to  impute  to  him,  justly  or 
unjustly,  a  desire  if  not  a  determination  to  bring  on  the 
hostilities.  They  affirmed  that  he  not  only  planned  a 
war  but  fancied  himself  as  conqueror  of  Mexico — and 
had  more  ground  for  their  suspicion  than  they  ought 
to  have  had. 

But  to  make  dark  puzzle  blacker  still,  the  unsettled 
political  status  of  the  West  at  that  time  was  dangerous 
enough  without  the  appearance  of  any  mysterious 
plotter  on  the  stage.  When  rivers  were  the  sole  avenues 
of  trade  there  was  little  commercial  affinity  between 
the  metropolis  of  the  Ohio  and  Mississippi  rivers  and 
those  of  the  Hudson  and  Potomac,  and  commerce 
often  determines  boundary  lines.  This  we  have  em- 
phasized sufficiently  to  make  the  reader's  imagination 
fully  alive  to  the  fate  of  the  West  should  war  be  de- 
clared against  Spain.  Burr's  far-reaching  hatred  of 
the  reigning  administration,  his  many  prophecies  of  a 
dissolution  of  the  United  States  as  then  constituted, 
made  it  a  gigantic  task  to  throw  from  his  shoulders  the 
stigma  of  actually  plotting  the  disunion  of  his  country. 

Such  was  the  status  when  Burr  reached  Pittsburg, 
where  a  boat  had  been  prepared  for  him  in  advance. 


292  The  Ohio  River 

It  was  the  kind  of  house  boat  then  called  an  ''ark," 
sixty  feet  in  length  and  fourteen  feet  wide ;  it  contained 
four  rooms,  a  dining-room,  kitchen,  and  two  bed- 
rooms, all  lighted  by  glass  windows.  One  roof  covered 
the  apartments  and  served  as  a  promenade  deck.  It  is 
extremely  unfortunate  that  the  journal  Burr  kept  dur- 
ing his  tour  was  not  preserved  as  it  would  give  much 
interesting  information  of  the  Ohio  Valley  at  this  early 
date.  Touching  at  Wheeling  and  Marietta  he  recorded 
that  the  citizens  of  the  former  village  seemed  quite  on 
a  par  with  eastern  villagers,  and  that  many  of  the 
houses  at  Marietta  would  have  been  called  handsome 
anywhere.  At  the  latter  point  he  made  a  tour  of  the 
celebrated  mounds,  and  concerning  them  he  records 
that  he  found  it  difficult  to  reach  any  satisfactory 
conclusion — practically  agreeing  with  the  opinions  of 
our  latest  and  most  accurate  scholars. 

Dropping  down  the  river  he  moored  his  ark  out  of 
curiosity  at  Blennerhassett  Island,  having  heard  of 
the  eccentric  immigrant  when  at  Marietta.  While  stroll- 
ing on  the  island  the  strangers  were  seen  by  Mrs. 
Blennerhassett,  who  sent  an  invitation  to  them  to  come 
to  the  house.  Burr  in  reply  sent  his  card,  politely 
declining  the  offer  of  hospitality.  The  lord  of  the 
manor  being  absent  Mrs.  Blennerhassett  took  it  upon 
herself  to  entertain  the  distinguished  traveller  and 
went  in  person  to  present  an  invitation  to  dinner. 
This  Burr  accepted  and  remained  through  a  pleasant 
evening  at  the  mansion.  At  eleven  o'clock  the  travel- 
lers again  set  sail.  Burr,  without  seeing  Blennerhassett, 
accurately  took  his  measurement;  be  found  the  man 
but  half  satisfied  with  his  island  adventure  and  nearing 
the    bottom   of   his   pocket-book.      Whether   at   this 


tn 


'J. 


Blennerhassett's  Isle  de  Beau  293 

time  he  broached  the  subject  of  this  intended  land 
speculation  to  Mrs.  Blennerhassett  is  ver}^  probable 
but  not  sure;  that  she  herself  was  attracted  to  him 
strongly  and  was  his  true  friend  through  all  that 
followed  is  a  matter  of  history. 

Burr  spent  the  memorable  summer  of  1805  in  the 
South,  sounding  people  of  importance,  feted  far  and 
wide.  In  October  he  ascended  the  Ohio  and  paused 
once  more  at  the  island,  Blennerhassett  again  being 
absent.  Reaching  the  East  he  addressed  his  first  letter 
to  him  in  December. 

It  was  a  very  innocent  communication  [writes  Parton] 
though  the  contrary  has  been  asserted.  It  began  with  regrets 
that  he  had  not  had  the  pleasure  of  meeting  Blennerhassett  at 
his  home,  and  inquired  when  and  where  they  could  come  to- 
gether. Its  main  purport  was  that  Blennerhassett  was  too 
much  of  a  man  to  be  satisfied  with  the  commonplace  delights 
of  rural  seclusion.  He  should  aspire  to  a  career  in  which  his 
powers  would  be  employed.  His  fortune,  already  impaired, 
would  dwindle  away  gradually,  and  his  children  be  left  destitute. 
The  world  was  wide,  he  should  go  forth  from  his  enervating 
solitude  in  pursuit  of  fortune  and  of  honor. 

Whether  Burr  got  his  information  of  Blenner- 
hassett's affairs  directly  from  Mrs.  Blennerhassett  or 
from  current  rumor  one  cannot  say.  But  the  fact 
remains  that  there  was  the  best  foundation  for  his 
suspicion.  Blennerhassett  was  already  planning  to 
make  a  change  of  residence.  This  is  clear  from 
letters  written  by  him  in  this  same  month  of  December, 
1805.  In  a  letter  to  John  Brown,  then  just  settled 
on  the  lower  Mississippi,  Blennerhassett  says:  "The 
hints  you  have  given  of  the  predilection  you  entertain 
for  your  last  chosen  meridian,  have  kindled  in  our  minds 
a    fire    of    enthusiastic   curiosity,    which    our   present 


294  The  Ohio  River 

embarrasments  will  constantly  fan.  ...  "  He 
then  speaks  of  a  commercial  venture  in  company  with 
Dudley  Woodbridge  of  Marietta  and  refers  to  a  neces- 
sary abandonment  of  books  and  science,  "to  which,  I 
fear,  the  state  of  my  affairs  will  henceforth,  I  know  not 
how  long,  condemn  me."  Six  days  later,  December 
15th,  he  writes  a  letter  to  General  Devereux  in  which 
he  speaks  of  the  need  of  "selling  or  letting  this  place  to 
effect  a  removal  to  another,  where  I  could  embark  in 
mercantile  pursuits,  or  the  resumption  of  my  old  legal 
profession."^ 

Thus  it  is  only  right  to  emphasize  the  fact  of  Blenner- 
hassett's  purpose  to  leave  the  island,  before  Burr's 
"innocent''  communication  of  early  December  reached 
him.  In  all  the  literature  of  the  svibject  there  is  not 
sufficient  emphasis  of  this  fact.  It  may  be  that  in  this 
decision  Burr  had  a  part,  as  he  had  twice  been  on 
Blennerhassett  Island,  but  there  is  no  proof  of  this. 

Such  being  the  case,  and  Blennerhassett  being  the 
vagary  he  was,  this  letter  of  Burr's,  received  in  De- 
cember, 1805,  proved  a  trump  card.  The  ground  was 
fertile  with  strange  possibilities;  and  Burr's  seed  was 
as  timely  as  fate.  In  his  reply  to  Burr,  dated  December 
2 1  St,  the  emigre  states  that  he  is  compelled  to  give 
over  the  former  hope  of  remaining  on  his  island 

where  for  eig^ht  years  I  have  dreamed  and  hoped  I  should  rest 
my  bones  forever,  [and  desired  to  go  again]  into  active  Hfe,  to 
the  resumption  of  my  former  profession  of  the  bar,  mercantile 
or  other  enterprise,  if  I  should  find  an  opportunity  of  selling 
or  letting  my  establishment  here.  .  .  .  Having  thus  advised 
you  [he  continues]  of  m}^  desire  and  motives  to  pursue  a  change 
of  life,  to  engage  in  anything  v/hich  may  suit  my  circumstances, 

1  William  H.  Safford,  The  Blennerhassett  Papers  (Cincinnati,   1861), 
in,  112. 


Aaron  Burr. 
From  a  steel  encravine. 


%>  ,<*, 

%*^ 

^■^^A. 


■5. 


Blennerhassett's  Isle  de  Beau  295 

I  hope,  Sir,  you  will  not  regard  it  indelicate  in  me  to  observe 
to  you  how  highly  I  should  be  honored  in  being  associated  with 
you,  in  any  contemplated  enterprise  you  would  permit  me  to 
participate  in. 

Blennerhassett  had,  in  the  letter,  received  a  sub- 
stantial hint  at  the  possible  outcome  of  Burr's  land 
speculation  as  shown  by  the  following  sentence: 

Not  presuming  to  know  or  guess  at  the  intercourse,  if  any, 
subsisting  between  you  and  the  present  Government,  but 
viewing  the  probability  of  a  rupture  with  Spain,  the  claim  for 
action  the  country  will  make  upon  your  talents,  in  the  event 
of  an  engagement  against,  or  subjugation  of,  any  of  the  Spanish 
Territories,  I  am  disposed  in  the  confidential  spirit  of  this  letter 
to  offer  you  my  friends,  and  my  own  services  to  co-operate  in 
any  contemplated  measures  in  which  you  may  embark.  .  .  . 
I  shall  await  with  much  anxiety  the  receipt  of  your  reply.  .  .  . 

To  be  lenient  where  there  is  doubt  it  is  safe  to  say 
that  Blennerhassett  was  embarking  in  Burr's  scheme 
because  it  was,  in  the  main,  in  line  with  an  earlier  plan 
of  his  own.  It  seems  that  it  did  not  occur  to  him  that 
Burr  might  be  promoting  a  land  speculation  chiefly 
because  of  a  subtle  ulterior  motive.  He  was  duped, 
as  w^ere  hundreds  of  others.  As  the  necessary  prepara- 
tions for  a  commercial  venture  (securing  boats,  provi- 
sions, and  men)  were  exactly  similar,  in  many  respects, 
to  the  preparations  for  a  campaign  against  the 
Spaniards,  it  was  easy  for  the  adroit  fortune-seeker  to 
hoodwink  those  who  would  not  have  engaged  in  his 
latter  plan,  and,  at  the  same  time,  by  hints  and  sugges- 
tions, incite  those  who  would  have  relished  it  in  the 
extreme. 

For  several  months  Burr's  expedition  delayed  in 
proportion  as  the  probabilities  of  a  war  with  Spain 
decreased;  he  even  sought,  for  the  second  time,  an 
appointment  from  President  Jefferson  as  late  as  April. 


296  The  Ohio  River 

Failing  in  this  he  seems  to  have  turned  with  energy- 
sharpened  by  bitter  anger  to  the  western  exploit, 
whatever  it  was,  and  now  answered  Blennerhassett's 
letter  of  December  21st  of  the  year  before,  which  he 
received  in  February.  It  had  lain  unanswered  until 
now;  and  it  is  more  than  singular  that  the  date  of  his 
reply  (April  15  th)  and  the  date  of  which  President 
Jefferson  makes  record  in  his  "Anas"  of  Burr's  second 
unsuccessful  application  for  a  diplomatic  or  other 
appointment,  should  exactly  coincide!  It  is  difficult 
for  one  not  to  feel  a  strong  prejudice  against  Burr  in 
his  seeking  an  appointment  from  Jefferson  after  the 
western  "exploit"  had  been  proposed  widely;  it  has 
every  appearance  of  being  a  dernier  ressort  when  other 
lines  of  activity  were  blocked. 

From  this  on,  there  seems  to  be  no  pause  in  the 
movement  of  the  pitiful  tragedy.  So  far  as  Blenner- 
hassett  is  concerned  it  all  appears  measurably  clear, 
save  for  one  feature  to  be  mentioned  in  a  moment. 
In  July,  1806,  Burr  made  his  purchase  of  the  Washita 
lands.  The  tract  comprised  four  hundred  thousand 
acres  for  which  he  was  to  pay  forty  thousand  dollars; 
five  thousand  he  paid  down.  His  son-in-law,  husband 
of  the  rare  Theodosia  Burr  Alston,  doubtless  fur- 
nished the  funds  in  part;  a  number  of  friends  in  the 
East  aided.  At  this  time  war  seemed  very  proba- 
ble ;  ' '  Never  was  an  adventurer  more  sanguine  of  suc- 
cess than  was  Burr  in  July  and  August  .  .  .  " 
affirmed  Parton;  "the  plot  seemed  well  laid.  The 
excellence  of  it  was  that  both  his  schemes  were  genuine. 
He  reall}^  had  two  strings  to  his  bow.  If  war  broke 
out,  he  would  march  into  Mexico;  if  not,  he  would 
settle  on  the  Washita;  and  wait  for  abetter  opportunity." 


Blennerhassett's  Isle  de  Beau  297 

On  the  29th  of  July  Burr  forwarded  by  the  hand  of  his 
agent  Swartwout  the  famous  cypher  letter  to  General 
Wilkinson;  it  reads  as  follows,  the  italics  being  the 
words  Wilkinson  erased  when  he  turned  State's  evi- 
dence and  divulged  the  plot: 

Your  letter,  postmarked  ijth  May,  is  received.  At  length  I 
have  obtained  funds,  and  have  actually  commenced.  The 
eastern  detachments  from  different  points,  and  under  different 
pretences,  will  rendezvous  on  the  Ohio,  ist  of  November.  Every 
thing  internal  and  external  favors  otir  views.  Naval  protection 
of  England  is  secured.  Truxton  is  going  to  Jamaica,  to  arrange 
with  the  Admiral  on  that  station.  It  will  meet  us  at  the  Mis- 
sissippi. England,  a  navy  of  the  United  States,  are  ready  to 
join,  and  final  orders  are  given  to  my  friends  and  followers. 
It  will  be  a  host  of  choice  spirits.  Wilkinson  shall  be  second  to 
Burr  only,  and  Wilkinson  shall  dictate  the  rank  and  promotion 
of  his  officers.  Burr  will  proceed  westward  ist  of  August, 
never  to  return.  With  him  go  his  daughter  and  grandson. 
The  husband  will  follow  in  October,  with  a  CORPS  of  worthies. 
Send,  forthwith,  an  intelligent  friend  with  whom  Burr  may 
confer.  He  shall  return  immediately  with  further  interesting 
details:  this  is  essential  to  harmony  and  concert  of  movement. 
Send  a  list  all  persons  known  to  Wilkinson  west  of  the  moun- 
tains, who  could  be  useful,  with  a  note  delineating  their  character. 
By  your  messenger,  send  me  four  or  five  of  the  commissions  of 
your  officers,  which  you  can  borrow  under  any  pretense  you 
please.  They  shall  be  retained  faithfully.  Already  are  orders 
given  to  the  contractor  to  forward  six  months'  provision  to 
points  Wilkinson  may  name;  this  shall  not  be  used  until  the 
last  moment,  and  then  under  proper  injunctions.  Our  project, 
my  dear  friend,  is  brought  to  a  point  so  long  desired.  Burr 
guarantees  the  result  with  his  life  and  honor,  with  the  lives,  and 
honor,  and  the  fortunes  of  hundreds,  the  best  blood  of  our 
country.  Burr's  plan  of  operation  is  to  move  down  rapidly, 
from  the  falls,  on  the  15th  of  November,  with  the  first  five 
hundred  or  one  thousand  men,  in  light  boats  now  constructing 
for  that  purpose,  to  be  at  Natchez  between  the  5th  and  15th 


298  The  Ohio  River 

of  December,  there  to  meet  yo7i,  there  to  determine  whether  it 
will  be  expedient  in  the  first  instance,  to  seize  on,  or  pass  by, 
Baton  Rouge  ...  on  receipt  of  this,  send  Burr  an  answer, 
.  .  .  draw  on  Burr  for  all  expenses,  etc.  The  people  of  the 
country  to  which  we  are  going  are  prepared  to  receive  us ;  their 
agents,  now  with  Burr,  say  that  if  we  will  protect  their  religion, 
and  will  not  subject  them  to  a  foreign  power  that,  in  three 
weeks,  all  will  be  settled.  The  gods  invite  tis  to  glory  and 
fortune;  it  remains  to  be  seen  whether  we  deserve  the  boon. 
The  bearer  of  this  goes  express  to  you;  he  will  hand  a  formal 
letter  of  introduction  to  you,  from  Burr;  he  is  a  man  of  inviola- 
able  honor  and  perfect  discretion,  formed  to  execute  rather 
than  project,  capable  of  relating  facts  with  fidelity  and  incapable 
of  relating  them  otherwise.     He  is  thoroughly  informed  of  the 

plans  and  intentions  of ,  and  will  disclose  to  you,  as  far  as 

you  inquire,  and  no  further;  he  has  imbibed  a  reverence  for 
your  character,  and  may  be  embarrassed  in  your  presence; 
put  him  at  ease,  and  he  will  satisfy  you.^ 

On  August  4th,  Burr  with  Mrs.  Alston  and  son  set 
out  for  the  West.  From  Bedford,  Pennsylvania,  he 
wrote  Blennerhassett  on  August  15  th  that  he  would 
reach  him  on  the  23d  or  24th  of  that  month.  As  he 
forged  westward  he  seems  to  have  spread  everywhere 
the  seeds  of  sedition;  diverging  north  and  south  from 
his  direct  course  he  met  many  people  and  talked  to 
each  as  he  felt  would  do  most  good;  to  one  he  would 
emphasize  the  land  purchase;  with  another  the  possi- 
bilities of  war  and  glory ;  to  another  he  coincided  in  de- 
spising the  reigning  government  at  Washington,  though 
everywhere  he  made  it  appear  that  Jefferson's  admin- 
istration favored  war  with  Spain,  and  everywhere 
spread  the  intimation  that  Burr's  plan  was  secretly 

'  "The  words  in  italics  were  stricken  out,  and,  in  some  instances,  sup- 
plied by  others,  in  the  copy  which  was  presented  to  the  Legislature  of 
Louisiana  by  General  Wilkinson,  his  reason  for  the  alteration  being  to 
divert  public  suspicion  from  himself  as  being  connected  with  Burr." — 
Safford,  The  Blennerhassett  Papers,  169. 


Blennerhassett's  Isle  de  Beau  299 

favored  by  it.  If  in  most  instances  he  fed  the  right 
sauce  to  the  right  gander  he  made  a  mess  of  it  in  one 
staunch  home  in  the  "Monongahela  country" — that 
of  Colonel  Morgan  near  Canonsburg,  Pennsylvania. 
After  talking  freely  to  the  Colonel's  sons  he  descended 
from  his  chamber,  when  his  host  thought  him  abed, 
and  broached  the  subject  uppermost  in  his  mind  to 
the  old  Colonel.  The  latter's  attitude  gave  the  sharp 
Burr  great  reason  to  change  the  topic  of  conversation, 
which  he  quickly  did.  Morgan  in  consultation  with 
others  dispatched  a  letter  to  President  Jefferson;  this 
letter,  Jefferson  later  said,  gave  him  his  first  notion  of 
Burr's  real  design. 

Reaching  Blennerhassett  Island,  the  plan  of  opera- 
tions was  quickly  rounded  into  shape.  The  land  specu- 
lation was  circulated  as  the  real  purpose,  and  all  comers 
were  to  have  one  hundred  acres  of  land  as  bounty  for 
embarking.  How  much  or  how  little  Burr  confided  in 
Blennerhassett  is  not  known.  It  has  been  said  that 
the  Irishman  was  kept  in  the  dark  so  far  as  the  larger 
dreams  of  the  fortune-seeker  were  concerned.  If  such 
was  the  case  how  are  we  to  explain  the  series  of  articles 
which  the  fluent  pen  of  Blennerhassett  now  wrote,  and 
which  were  published  in  the  Ohio  Gazette  at  Marietta 
under  the  non-de-plume  of  "Querist"?  They  present 
the  view  of  a  logical  separation  of  the  eastern  and 
western  States  of  the  Union.  Who  can  explain  these 
literary  productions,  originating  immediately  after 
Burr's  arrival,  otherwise  than  as  part  and  parcel  with 
the  plan  of  operations  then  outlined?  To  the  present 
writer  these  articles  form  one  of  the  strongest  proofs 
of  the  treasonable  influence  exerted  by  Aaron  Burr  on 
the  western  people. 


300  The  Ohio  River 

From  this  time  on  Burr  and  Blennerhassett  were  in 
close  touch,  the  former  securing  men  for  the  emigra- 
tion, the  latter  preparing  the  boats  and  stores,  and 
arranging  his  affairs  before  departmg  from  his  home. 
Burr  made  Kentucky  his  headquarters,  but  visited 
all  the  important  western  towns.  Blennerhassett  ran 
back  and  forth  between  Kentucky,  the  island,  and 
Marietta.  The  expedition  was  to  proceed  in  three 
divisions.  One  Comfort  Tyler,  from  New  York,  was  in 
command  of  boats  to  start  at  Pittsburg  containing  the 
emigrants  of  that  region  and  the  East.  When  this 
flotilla  reached  the  island  it  was  to  be  joined  by  Blenner- 
hassett's  boats,  fifteen  in  number,  then  being  built  by 
Col.  Jos.  Barker  on  the  Muskingum.  The  combined 
fleets  were  to  be  met  by  Burr's  own  boats  (six)  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Cumberland,  these  having  been  built  and 
stocked  at  Nashville,  for  the  payment  of  which  Andrew 
Jackson  held  four  thousand  dollars  of  Burr's  money. 
Burr  hoped  the  expedition  would  get  off  by  November 
15th  but  was  disappointed  in  this.  On  November 
14th  Tyler  wrote  Blennerhassett  that  he  hoped  to  set 
sail  by  December  15th  but  that  his  "settlers"  were 
late  in  arriving.  He  purposed  being  at  the  island  by 
December  8th.  By  contract  Blennerhassett' s  boats 
were  to  be  ready  December  9th.  They  were  to  number 
fifteen;  ten  were  to  be  forty  feet,  and  five  fifty  feet 
long;  all  were  to  be  ten  feet  wide  and  two  and  one 
half  feet  deep,  "after  the  Schenectady  model,  such 
as  were  used  on  the  Mohawk  river."  A  keelboat 
sixty  feet  long  was  to  carry  arms  and  stores;  one  of 
the  boats  was  to  be  finished  in  the  best  of  style  for 
Blennerhassett' s  family;  this  was  to  have  separate 
rooms,   glass   windows,    and  a  fire-place.     The    boats 


'5Jo 

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t/3 


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^^ 


Blennerhassett's  Isle  de  Beau  ;;50i 

were  to  be  provisioned  with  pork,  bacon,  flour,  kiln- 
dried  meal,  whiske}^  etc.  The  cost  of  the  boats 
was  two  thousand  dollars  and  the  cost  of  the  provisions 
an  equal  amount. 

Little  by  little  the  suspicions  of  people  were  awakened 
by  these  preparations ;  Burr  was  accused  in  Kentucky 
of  plotting  disunion ;  Blennerhassett  confidentially  ac- 
knowledged the  authorship  of  the  "Querist"  articles, 
and  rumor  ran  riot  in  the  neighborhood  that  Blenner- 
hassett's boats  were  being  built  for  treasonable  purposes. 
An  agent,  one  Graham,  was  sent  westward  by  Jef- 
ferson on  the  receipt  of  Colonel  Morgan's  letter,  who 
palmed  himself  off  on  Blennerhassett  as  an  ardent 
Burrite  and  then  hurried  to  Chillicothe,  the  capital 
of  Ohio,  with  a  clear  idea  of  what  Blennerhassett 
thought  was  on  the  tapis.  As  early  as  October  6th 
a  mass  meeting  of  the  citizens  of  Wood  County,  of 
which  Newport,  now  Parkersburg,  W.  Va.,  was  the 
metropolis,  was  held  for  the  purpose  of  protecting  "the 
honor  and  safety  of  the  settlers  and  their  property, 
and  to  cause  every  person  friendly  to  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States  to  express  their  attach- 
ment thereto."  Matters  came  to  a  crisis  when,  on 
receipt  of  information  from  General  Wilkinson,  who 
turned  State's  evidence,  President  Jefferson  issued 
a  proclamation  on  November  27th  announcing  that 
"unlawful  enterprises  were  on  foot  in  the  western 
States  .  .  .  and  commanded  all  officers,  civil  and  mili- 
tary, to  use  their  immediate  and  utmost  exertions  to 
bring  the  offending  persons  to  condign  punishment." 
The  Ohio  Legislature,  December  6th,  authorized  the 
calling  out  of  militia  at  Marietta. 

The  situation  now  presented  is  perfectly  typical 


302  The  Ohio  River 

of  the  Ohio  Valley  at  this  time,  when  this  valley  was 
"the  West."  There  was  the  political  rivalry,  which 
Burr's  friends,  with  Henry  Clay  at  their  head,  soundly 
denounced  as  "persecution" — such  as  had  driven  him 
out  of  the  East.  The  virulence  of  this  political  rivalry 
could  not  have  been  more  bitter  than  here  on  the 
river  that  was  the  dividing  line  of  Roundhead  and 
Cavalier.  Then  there  was  the  idle  crew  that  Burr's 
agents  had  enlisted  along  the  river,  hot  for  this  or 
any  other  adventure;  a  ntmiber  of  these  were  earnest, 
honest  men  but  the  rank  and  file  were  the  rowdies  with 
which  the  valley  was  infested  and  eager  as  Catiline's  old 
tribe  for  "new  things, "  With  the  overhauling  of  Burr 
in  Kentucky  and  the  issuing  of  Jefferson's  proclamation, 
a  wave  of  boisterous  patriotism  swept  over  the  valley, 
inherently  honest,  although  identified  with  half-ruffian 
hordes  who  made  the  pretence  of  preserving  order  an 
opportunity  for  riotous  outlawry. 

Jefferson's  proclamation  and  the  action  of  the  Ohio 
Legislature  December  6th  came  just  in  time  to  thwart 
Blennerhassett's  plan  of  departure.  Tyler,  with  only 
four  boats  and  thirty-two  men,  reached  Blennerhassett 
Island  December  7th,  but  before  Blennerhassett's 
own  boats  were  completed  they  were  seized  by  the 
Ohio  militia.  This  adroit  movement  followed  the 
arrival  of  Jefferson's  proclamation.  At  Newport 
(Parkersburg)  even  a  bolder  measure  was  proposed; 
this  was  nothing  less  than  the  seizure  of  Blennerhassett 
and  his  men.  Learning  this  fact  the  latter  wrote 
hastily  to  Colonel  Barker  at  Marietta  for  such  of 
the  boats  as  were  completed.  Finding  these  held 
by  the  State  of  Ohio,  the  baffled  man,  fully  de- 
termined to    escape   the    Virginia     militia,    prepared 


Blennerhassett's  Isle  de  Beau  303 

to  leave  the  island  on  the  following  night,  December 
loth. 

His  situation  was  now  pitiable ;  many  of  those  who 
had  agreed  to  embark  in  the  adventure  were  thunder- 
struck at  the  President's  proclamation  and  its  results; 
few  of  them,  and  those  a  most  unreliable  lot,  remained 
steadfast  in  the  adventurous  plan.  An  episode  of 
the  hour  is  not  without  its  significant,  as  well  as 
humorous,  aspects,  in  that  day  of  rowdy  and  outlaw. 
A  band  of  young  men  who  were  unmoved  in  their 
determination  to  follow  the  fortunes  of  the  fleeing 
Irishman  undertook  to  filch  the  appropriated  flotilla 
of  flatboats  from  the  militia  at  Marietta.  One  boat 
was  secured  on  the  maraud,  the  militia  succeeding 
in  holding  the  remainder,  and  in  this  one  boat,  near 
midnight  of  December  loth,  poor  "Blanny, "  as  he 
was  locally  known,  set  sail  with  Tyler's  boats. 

Mrs.  Blennerhassett  and  children  were  left  to 
come  later  in  the  family  boat  that  was  being  built. 
For  this  boat  Mrs.  Blennerhassett  made  a  hurried 
trip  to  Marietta  on  the  following  day  and  during  her 
absence  the  horde  of  Virginia  militia  descended  upon 
the  island  estate  under  the  command  of  Colonel  Hugh 
Parker.  The  commander,  learning  of  Blennerhassett's 
flight,  put  off  post  haste  "cross  country"  to  head  the 
boats  at  Point  Pleasant.  The  militia,  lacking  the 
restraining  hand  of  their  leader,  occupied  the  mansion 
like  vandals  and,  filled  with  liquors  there  discovered, 
entered  upon  a  disgraceful  round  of  violence  and 
destruction.  This  wantonness  is  described  by  two 
young  men,  Morgan  Neville  and  William  Robinson, 
who  chanced  to  be  passing  down  the  Ohio  and  were 
arrested  as  accomplices,  as  follows: 


304  The  Ohio  River 

On  the  13th  day  of  December  1806  the  boat  in  which  we  were, 
was  driven  ashore,  by  ice  and  wind,  on  Backus'  Island,  about 
one  mile  below  Mr.  Blennerhassett's  house;  we  landed  in  the 
forenoon,  and  the  wind  continuing  unfavorable,  did  not  afford 
us  any  opportunity  of  putting  off  until  three  o'clock  in  the 
evening,  at  which  time  we  were  attacked  by  about  twenty-five 
men,  well  armed,  who  rushed  upon  us  suddenly,  and  we,  not 
being  in  a  situation  to  resist  the  fury  of  a  mob,  surrendered; 
a  strong  guard  was  placed  in  the  boat,  to  prevent,  we  presume, 
those  persons  of  our  party  who  remained  in  the  boat,  from 
going  off  with  her,  while  we  were  taken  to  the  house  of  Mr. 
Blennerhassett.  On  our  arrival  at  the  house  we  found  it  filled 
with  militia;  another  party  of  them  were  engaged  in  making 
fires,  around  the  house,  of  rails  dragged  from  the  fences  of  Mr. 
Blennerhassett.  At  this  time  Mrs.  Blennerhassett  was  from 
home.  When  she  returned,  about  an  hour  after,  she  remon- 
strated against  this  outrage  on  the  property,  but  without  effect; 
the  officers  declared  that  while  they  were  on  the  island,  the 
property  absolutely  belonged  to  them.  We  were  informed, 
by  themselves  that  their  force  consisted  of  forty  men  the  first 
night;  and  on  the  third  day  it  was  increased  to  eighty.  The 
officers  were  constantly  issuing  the  whiskey  and  meat,  which 
had  been  laid  up  for  the  use  of  the  family;  and  whenever  any 
complaint  was  made  by  the  friends  of  Mrs.  Blennerhassett, 
they  invariably  asserted  that  everything  on  the  farm  was  their 
own  property.  There  appeared  to  us  to  be  no  kind  of  subordi- 
nation among  the  men;  the  large  room  they  occupied  on  the 
first  floor  presented  a  continued  scene  of  riot  and  drunkenness; 
the  furniture  appeared  ruined  by  the  bayonets,  and  one  of  the 
men  fired  his  gun  against  the  ceiling ;  the  ball  made  a  large  hole, 
which  completely  spoiled  the  beauty  of  the  room.  They  insisted 
that  the  servants  should  wait  on  them,  before  attending  to  their 
mistress;  when  this  was  refused,  they  seized  upon  the  kitchen, 
and  drove  the  negroes  into  the  wash  house.  We  were  detained 
from  Saturday  evening  until  Tuesday  morning;  during  which 
time  there  were  never  less  than  thirty,  and  frequently  from 
seventy  to  eighty  men  living  in  this  riotous  manner  entirely 
on  provisions  of  Mrs.  Blennerhassett.     When  we  left  the  island, 


Blennerhassett's  Isle  de  Beau  305 

a  cornfield  near  the  house,  in  which  the  com  was  still  remaining, 
was  filled  with  cattle,  the  fences  having  been  pulled  down  to 
make  fires.  This,  we  pledge  ourselves  to  be  a  true  statement 
of  those  transactions,  as  impression  was  made  on  us  at  the  time. 

In  company  with  these  young  men  Mrs.  Blenner- 
hassett  set  sail  in  a  flatboat  secured  from  A.  W.  Putnam 
of  Belpre  on  the  night  of  December  1 7th. 

Blennerhassett  escaped  detection  of  guards  b^th 
at  GalHpolis  and  Point  Pleasant.  His  boats  passed 
the  "Falls"  at  Louisville  December  i6th.  On  the 
2  2d  Burr  came  down  the  Cumberland  with  two 
boats.  The  combined  flotilla  numbered  eleven  boats, 
and  an  hundred-odd  men.  Fort  Massac  was  reached 
December  29th  and  on  the  next  day  the  Mississippi 
was  entered.  As  is  well  known  both  Burr  and  Blenner- 
hassett were  brought  to  trial  at  Richmond,  Virginia, 
and  declared  "not  guilty"  of  treason  as  accused. 

The  island  farm  and  home,  despoiled  and  over- 
grown, was  seized  by  Blennerhassett's  creditors  and 
when  he  returned  a  year  later  it  was  truly  a  "Deserted 
Isle"  that  welcomed  the  ill-fated  man.  The  house 
had  been  gutted  of  its  contents,  the  slaves  had  run 
away  or  been  seized  for  debt.  The  boats  that  were 
completed  on  the  Muskingum  had  been  used  as  gov- 
ernment transports  for  troops  to  St.  Louis,  the  pro- 
visions had  been  sold  by  the  government.  Some  of  the 
older  residents  of  the  Muskingum  valley  can  still  re- 
member when  portions  of  some  of  Blennerhassett's 
uncompleted  boats  formed  portions  of  farm  buildings 
until  the  knives  of  relic- hunters  demolished  them. 

Negligence  of  tenants,  river  freshets,  and  the 
rudeness  of  those  in  charge  (who  viewed  it  as  public 
property)  had  rendered  the  building  and  surroundings 


o 


06  The  Ohio  River 


pitiable  to  behold;  window  casings  had  been  torn  out 
to  procure  the  leaden  weights  by  which  the  sashes 
were  poised;  the  stone  roller  used  to  level  the  lawn 
and  grounds  was  broken  to  obtain  the  iron  axles  on 
which  it  ran.  Hemp  and  cordage  machinery  took  the 
place  of  flowers  and  shrubbery. 

Blennerhassett  looked  sadly  upon  the  ruins  of  his 
once  bright  home,  and  returning  to  Natchez,  purchased 
a  plantation  of  one  thousand  acres,  at  St.  Catherine, 
near  Port  Gibson,  Claiborne  County,  Mississippi ;  on  it 
he  placed  twenty-two  slaves,  and  there,  upon  about 
two  hundred  acres,  began  the  culture  of  cotton.  The 
war  with  Great  Britain,  in  1812-15,  occasioned  an 
embargo  and  reduction  of  values,  and  the  enterprise 
was  abandoned.  He  sold  the  plant  entire  for  twenty- 
seven  thousand  dollars,  which  scarcely  satisfied  his 
creditors. 

He  removed  to  New  York,  and  attempted  the 
practice  of  law.  Not  succeeding,  he  went  to  Canada 
in  1 8 19,  and  there  also  failed  in  his  purposes.  Then 
he  visited  Ireland,  his  native  heath,  to  prosecute  a 
reversionary  claim,  but  was  barred  by  statute  of 
limitations.  During  this  absence  of  her  husband, 
Mrs.  Blennerhassett  found  a  home  in  New  York,  and 
was  financially  assisted  by  the  Emmets.  She  went 
then  to  Pennsylvania,  where  at  Wilkesbarre,  her  sister, 
Mrs.  Dow,  resided.  She  next  joined  her  husband  in 
Montreal,  and  while  there,  in  1824,  wrote  for  publi- 
cation a  volume  entitled  Widow  of  the  Rock  and 
other  Poems.  Among  the  productions  of  her  pen 
while  in  Canada  was  the  pathetic  poem.  The  Deserted 
Isle.  She  died  in  New  York  and  was  buried  in  the 
"Marble  Cemetery ' '  on  Second  Street.     Blennerhassett 


Blennerhassett's  Isle  de  Beau  307 

died  at  Port  Pierre,  Isle  of  Guernsey,  February  ist, 
1831. 

Before  leaving  the  island  with  the  flotilla,  Blenner- 
hassett  had  rented  to  Colonel  Nathaniel  Gushing,  a  friend 
in  Belpre,  the  entire  estate,  crops,  cattle,  and  agri- 
cultural utensils.  He  kept  possession  for  two  years, 
and  it  was  then,  on  creditors'  suits,  taken  out  of  his 
hands  by  the  courts,  and  furniture  and  library  under 
an  attachment  sold  at  auction  for  bills  endorsed  by 
Blennerhassett  for  Burr, 

Joseph  S.  Lewis,  of  Philadelphia,  a  merchant, 
purchased  the  island  in  September  1 8 1 7 ,  after  the  failure, 
and  destruction  of  the  house  and  property.  It  passed 
into  the  hands  of  George  Neale,  Sr.,  and  is  now  possessed 
by  his  daughter  Alice  and  son-in-law  Amos  W.  Gordon. 
It  is  a  pleasure  resort  during  the  summer  season.  The 
old  well  is  still  in  use,  and  some  locust  and  other  trees 
said  to  have  been  planted  by  Blennerhassett  himself 
overshadow  its  moss-covered  edges  and  its  crystal 
waters  that  drop  from  the  old  oaken  bucket.  The 
caps  of  the  stone  gateway  are  shown  in  the  steps  of 
the  present  dwelling.  On  the  fine  grassy  terrace  where 
Blennerhassett  was  wont  to  promenade  and  repeat 
the  entire  Iliad  in  the  original  Greek,  fierce  baseball 
games  are  played  on  sunny  Sunday  afternoons,  while 
the  peanut  vender  hawks  his  ware  and  the  "pop" 
bottles  resound  under  the  shade  of  the  gigantic 
sycamores. 


Chapter  XIII 
Where  Yankee  and  Virginian  Met 

THE  four  "Yankee"  towns,  Marietta,  Columbia, 
and  Cincinnati  in  Ohio,  and  North  Bend  in 
Indiana,  grew  slowly  but  steadily;  in  the 
eyes  of  Virginians  and  Kentuckians  it  made  no 
difference  whether  the  newcomers  were  from  New  Eng- 
land or  New  Jersey ;  if  they  came  across  the  mountains 
(and  from  north  of  Virginia)  they  were  ' '  Yankees. ' '  The 
promoters  of  both  the  New  England  and  New  Jersey 
land  companies  began  selling  lands  to  pioneers  and  up 
and  down  the  Ohio  and  up  both  the  Muskingum  and 
the  Miamis  spread  the  offshooting  colonies.  The  im- 
petus given  to  emigration  from  New  England  and  the 
entire  seaboard  by  these  settlements  was  considerable ; 
converging  on  Pittsburg  came  thousands  of  eastern- 
ers, some  of  whom  came  to  the  New  England  settle- 
ments but  most  of  whom  scattered  up  and  down  the 
Ohio  River  and  into  Virginia  and  Kentucky.  They 
brought  with  them  the  best  and  the  worst  that  New 
England  had  to  give;  as  a  rule  they  were  a  cleanly, 
pious,  law-abiding  people;  their  towns  were  (com- 
paratively) model  pioneer  settlements;  their  inhab- 
itants were  educated  and  stood  for  social  purity  and 
advancement ;  moreover  they  were  as  a  class  possessed 
of  keen  business  ability,  quick  to  see  a  need  and  clever 

in  their  plans  to  meet  it.     They  likewise  possessed  their 

308 


Where  Yankee  and  Virginian  Met        309 

full  share  of  the  Puritanical  narrowness  of  their  fore- 
fathers; courteous  and  honest,  they  were  apt  to  be 
caustic  of  those  who  failed  to  rise  to  their  higher  plane 
of  moral  and  civic  conscientiousness.  They  were  re- 
spected wherever  they  went  but  were  thought  of  as 
over-sensitive  and  critical. 

As  we  have  seen,  the  fighting  Virginians,  Irish, 
Scotch-Irish,  and  Germans,  had  opened  the  Ohio  Valley, 
and  for  nearly  a  generation  before  the  New  Englanders 
arrived  these  rough  but  hardy  pioneers  had  been 
filling  the  Old  Southwest.  That  their  hungry  hatchets 
had  not  invaded  the  Old  Northwest  was  no  fault  of 
theirs.  What  is  now  West  Virginia  and  Kentucky 
contained  a  population  of  nearly  190,000  when  the 
easterners  arrived  on  the  Ohio  in  1788  and  founded 
Marietta  and  Cincinnati.  This  large  population  had 
come  mostly  from  Pennsylvania,  Virginia,  and  North 
Carolina.  To  speak  freely,  this  race  of  men  was  as 
uncouth  and  forbidding  as  the  dark  forests  which  it 
had  wonderfully  conquered;  it  was  an  ignorant  race 
so  far  as  books  were  concerned,  and  it  did  not  name 
its  settlements  in  honor  of  classic  heroes;  but  as  these 
rough  men  fought  their  way  westward  they  had  lost 
nothing  of  that  generous  spirit  of  southern  hospitality 
with  which  many  of  them  were  bom;  and  the  hard 
conditions  of  frontier  life  had  ingrained  in  them  a 
common  sympathy  for  others  and  a  generous  love  to 
help  those  in  distress.  Their  villages  were  squalid  and 
unkempt  but  the  stranger  found  a  generous  welcome 
there.  Conquering  the  Ohio  Valley  had  not  made 
scholars  and  gentlemen  of  them  in  the  polite  sense  in 
which  these  words  are  customarily  used ;  as  Roosevelt 
has  beautifully  said,  they  had  need  to  be  good  and 


310  The  Ohio  River 

strong — especially  strong!  Judged  by  the  glorious 
work  they  had  done  they  were  heroes  if  ever  heroes 
lived;  judged  by  their  beards  and  faces  and  their 
dooryards  they  were  all  their  New  England  neighbors 
and  visitors  were  quick  to  call  them.  And  the  fact 
remains  that  they  are  described  in  numberless  volumes 
ot  travels  in  their  true  colors — that  of  the  rich  earth 
of  the  Ohio  Valley.  Nine  tenths  of  these  descriptions, 
while  accurate  as  to  squalor  and  filth,  utterly  neglect 
to  give  the  conquerors  of  the  Ohio  Basin  their  due  in 
the  story  of  our  national  advance. 

But  the  "Yankees"  were  not  altogether  lovely  in 
the  eyes  of  the  first  comers,  who,  for  convenience  sake, 
we  may  call  the  Virginians.  Your  "Long  Knife"  was 
disposed  to  ridicule  much  that  was  very  worthy  in  the 
New  Englander,  and  as  for  those  characteristics  which 
have  made  the  Yankee  a  byword  throughout  the 
world,  he  was  profanely  antagonistic. 

And  so  the  neighbors  of  the  ex-Revolutionary 
Yankees  on  the  Ohio  River  were  apt  to  minimize 
their  honors. 

Yesterday  I  was  speaking  rather  harshly  to  a  man  who  had 
not  fulfilled  an  agreement  with  me  to  caulk  my  boat  [wrote 
a  sojourner  at  a  "New  England"  town]  when  a  gentleman  came 
up  and  accosted  him  with  "Ah,  General,  how  do  you  do!  I 
mean  to  dine  with  you.  What  'syour  hour?"  I  made  use  of 
this  opportunity  to  go  on  to  the  baker  in  pursuit  of  some  biscuit. 
I  found  him  at  home.  On  seeing  the  bread  I  began  to  comment 
on  the  price  and  quality,  and  might  have  betrayed  some  Httle 
dissatisfaction  and  incivility,  had  not  a  third  entered  opportunely 
to  say,  "Colonel,  I  want  a  loaf  of  bread. "  My  next  call  was  on 
a  butcher,  whose  sorry  dirty  looking  meat  made  me  neglectful 
of  my  late  experience  and  I  raved  without  any  consideration 
of  propriety  and  decorum,  till  brought  to  a  sense  of  misconduct 
and  absence  of  breeding  by  a  negro,  who,   taking  me  aside, 


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Where  Yankee  and  Virginian  Met        31^ 

very  kindly  warned  me  that  the  butcher  was  a  judge,  and  that  he 
could  fine  folks  for  cursing  and  swearing.  ...  I  consulted  my 
landlord,  whom  I  found  to  be  also  a  major  in  the  late  army. 
His  lesson  was  short.  "We  majors,  colonels,  and  generals," 
he  said,  "are  so  cheap  and  common  here,  that  people  don't 
mind  us  no  more  than  nothing.  Do  you  follow  their  example: 
live  without  restraint,  and  get  your  business  done  as  though 
you  were  dealing  with  knaves,  and  the  most  common  race  of 
men.  Our  title  signifies  but  little.  For  the  most  part  it  is 
used  towards  us  from  familiarity,  derision  and  contempt.  Those 
who  really  respect  us,  say  Tom,  Dick,  or  whatever  else  we  may 
be  called."  "But  the  judge,"  said  I,  "how  is  he  to  be  treated?" 
"When  in  his  character  of  butcher,"  said  the  major,  "he  is 
treated  rough  enough,  and  without  any  ceremony;  but  when 
in  court,  and  sometimes  on  Sundays,  the  citizens  say  'Your 
honour,'  and  touch  their  hat!" 

It  must  be  remembered  that  there  was  in  pohtical 

circles  at  this  early  period  a  southern  and  a  northern 

faction,  the  one  led  by  Virginians  and  the  other  by 

New  Englanders. 

The  Virginia  party  fear  and  hate  New  England  [wrote 
Manasseh  Cutler  in  1815]  whatever  may  be  their  political  char- 
acters [affiliation].  It  has  been  a  common  saying  here  [Wash- 
ington] this  winter  that  "There  is  no  being  in  nature  that  a 
Virginian  hates  so  much  as  a  New  England  Democrat. " 

It  was  inevitable  that  if  such  was  the  antagonistic 
feeling  in  the  nation  at  large,  the  immediate  contact 
of  the  representatives  of  the  two  factions  on  the 
Ohio  must  have  resulted  in  much  bitter  rivalry  and 
odious  comparison  of  forms  of  life  and  ideals.  If 
Virginia  democrats  hated  New  England  democrats  they 
chanced  to  meet  in  Washington  how  would  they  rel- 
ish one  of  the  opposite  political  faith  on  meeting 
face  to  face  in  the  Ohio  Valley? 

Thus  as  the  nineteenth  century  dawned  and  ad- 
vanced into  its  first  and  second  decade  we  find  the 


312  The  Ohio  River 

remarkable  scene  in  the  Ohio  Valley  of  the  meeting 
and  the  mixing  of  the  Puritan  and  the  Cavalier,  each 
bearing  his  notable  earmarks  however  altered  by 
circumstance  and  surroundings.  And  we  see  the  decline 
of  the  one  and  the  ascendency  of  the  other,  as  Indian 
fighting  slowly  gave  way  to  a  marvellous  commercial 
awakening.  In  this  awakening  the  scheming  Yankee 
played  his  role  and  won  his  way;  and  the  history  of 
the  Ohio  Valley  is  filled  to  overflowing  with  stories  of 
this  ingenious  people. 

The  Yankee  was  ever  under  suspicion  and  was 
believed  to  have  an  ulterior  motive  whether  he  spoke 
or  whether  he  kept  silence.  This  is  illustrated  in  the 
case  of  the  Dutch  farmer  who  was  overtaken  on  his- 
way  to  mill  by  a  traveller  who  soon  inquired  why  he 
carried  a  stone  in  one  end  of  his  meal-bag. 

" By  schure,"  he  replied,  "do  make  de  pag  schteady." 

"But  that  stone  don't  steady  the  load,"  insisted 
the  newcomer;  "throw  it  away  and  put  half  your 
meal  on  one  side  and  half  on  the  other. " 

With  a  "By  jing"  the  farmer  agreed  that  the  plan 
was  a  good  one  and  acted  accordingly.  Shortly  after, 
the  Yankee,  tiring  of  the  slow  rate  of  speed  maintained 
by  the  farmer,  set  out  in  advance  with  a  kindly  "Good 
morning."  Not  long  after  misgivings  seized  the 
Dutchman. 

"By  jing,"  he  swore  now,  "it's  all  a  tam  yenky 
trick;  effry  pody  in  de  klades  garries  their  krice  so, 
and  dat  fellar  hash  some  getch  in  it. "  Whereupon  he 
found  another  stone  and  rearranged  his  load  as  before. 
Thus  was  the  Yankee  ever  suspected. 

A  typical  Yankee  pedlar  came  to  the  door  of  a 
western  barber  shop  and  inquired  in  a  nasal  tone: 


Where  Yankee  and  Virginian  Met         313 

"I  calculate,  Sir,  I  couldn't  drive  a  trade  with 
you  to-day?" 

"I  calculate  you  calculate  about  right,"  was  the 
mimicking  reply. 

"Well,  I  guess  you  needn't  get  huffy  about  it," 
responded  the  Easterner  hopefully;  "now  here's  a 
dozen  genuine  razor  strops  worth  two  dollars  and  a 
half — ^you  may  have  'em — " 

"I  tell  you  I  don't  want  any  of  your  trash.  " 

"Wal,  now,  I  declare!  I  '11  bet  you  five  dollars  if 
you  make  me  an  offer  for  them  'ere  strops  we  '11  have 
a  trade  yet. " 

"Done, "  replied  the  barber  putting  up  the  money; 
"I  '11  give  you  a  picayune  for  the  strops. " 

"They're  yours,"  said  the  pedlar  quietly  laying 
them  down,  taking  the  picaynue — and  the  stakes. 
The  barber's  countenance  fell  and  the  crow  jeered. 
Yet  be  it  said  to  the  credit  of  the  pedlar  that  he  did 
not  retain  his  advantage.  Returning  the  money  he 
took  back  his  wares.  "There  it  is, "  he  said  as  he  gave 
back  even  the  picayune;  "a  trade  is  a  trade — and  now 
you  're  awake  in  airnest;  I  guess  the  next  time  you 
trade  with  that  'pic '  you  '11  do  better  than  buy  razor 
strops." 

As  debt  collectors  the  sons  of  the  rock-ribbed  New 
England  hills  were  noted  for  displaying  their  ingenuity 
in  masterly  ways.  If  one  plan  failed  they  were  im- 
mediately on  hand  with  another.  It  was  for  a  genius 
only  to  collect  the  bill  from  the  following  "hard 
customer."  The  party  in  question  had  been  owing 
a  sum  to  his  Yankee  friend  for  nearly  a  year,  regularly 
failing  to  take  the  duns  that  were  sent  to  him  seriously. 
At  last  he  agreed  to  pay  the  bill  on  a  given  day  in  the 


314  The  Ohio  River 

week   following.     Promptly  on   the   day   named   the 
Yankee  appeared  in  person  to  collect. 

"You   are  very  punctual,"   observed  the   debtor, 
wonderingly. 

"I  generally  am  in  business  matters,"  assented 
the  visitor  pleasantly.  "In  this  case  I  had  another 
reason  for  being  so." 

"Indeed,"  asked  the  querulous  host,  "and  pray, 
what  was  that  ? ' ' 

"Why,"  replied  the  affable  genius,  "if  a  person 
were  to  set  a  day  to  pay  me  money,  and  I  did  not  call, 
it  would  look  as  though  I  doubted  whether  he  meant 
to  give  it  to  me;  which,"  he  continued  with  monu- 
mental blandness,  "on  the  footing  of  friendship  you 
and  I  are,  would  be  absolutely  an  insult,  don't  you 
think  so?" 

"He  opened  his  eyes  and  stared  at  me,"  said  the 
collector,  later,  when  telling  of  his  record-breaking 
achievement,  "to  ascertain  if  I  was  quizzing  him. 
But  I  was  perfectly  serious  and  probably  looked  so. 
He  paid  the  debt,  and  I  have  not  a  shadow  of  a  doubt 
I  should  have  had  to  call  twenty  times  more  for  it  if 
I  had  not  hit  him  so  close. " 

In  another  instance,  a  gentleman  who  had  a  bill 
of  one  hundred  dollars  against  a  friend  was  advised 
to  secure  the  services  of  a  Yankee  collector,  who,  he 
was  assured,  "could  squeeze  oil  out  of  Bunker  Hill." 
The  case  demanded  heroic  treatment  and  the  Yankee 
was  engaged  on  the  condition  that  he  receive  one 
half  the  amount  for  doing  the  job.  Some  weeks  later 
the  collector  and  the  creditor  met. 

"Look  here,"  the  former  immediately  exclaimed, 
"I   had   considerable   luck  with   that   bill   of   your'n. 


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Where  Yankee  and  Virginian  Met        315 

You  see,  I  stuck  to  him  hke  a  mad  dog  to  the  root  of  a 
tree,  but  the  first  week  it  wa'n't  no  sort  of  use  at  it; 
not  a  bit.  If  he  was  home,  he  was  short;  if  he  was  n't 
at  home  I  could  n't  get  no  satisfaction.  By  the  by, 
says  I,  after  going  sixteen  times,  I  '11  fix  ye;  so  I  sat 
down  on  the  doorstep  all  day  and  part  of  the  evening, 
and  I  began  airly  next  morning,  and  about  ten  o'clock  he 
gin  in.    He  paid  me  my  half,  and  I  gin  him  up  the  note. ' ' 

"Yankee  Tricks"  is  a  common  term  [writes  an  old-time 
student  of  social  conditions  in  Cist's  Miscellany],  for  anything 
very  smart,  done  in  the  way  of  trade,  no  matter  in  which  of  the 
States  the  doer  was  born.  I  approve  of  the  old  saying  "Let 
every  tub  stand  on  its  own  bottom. "  I  am  no  Yankee,  but  have 
been  well  acquainted  with  many  of  them  in  the  way  of  business 
and  friendly  intercourse.  They  are  generally  pretty  cute, 
cautious  and  saving  men,  though  liberal  promoters  of  chari- 
table and  public  institutions,  to  which  objects  a  single  Yankee 
State  (the  old  Bay)  or  perhaps  the  town  of  Boston  only,  has, 
within  the  last  thirty  years,  given  more  than  the  whole  of  the 
States  south  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line  have  done  since  their 
first  settlement;  and  of  what  these  have  given,  it  is  probable 
more  than  half  was  from  Baltimore  alone.  Let  any  man  take 
a  journey  south  on  a  real  good  horse,  and  when  he  returns  see 
if  the  beast  he  rides  does  not  show  he  has  been  out-Yankeed. 
He  is  somehow  or  other  induced  to  trade  or  swap  till  it  ends  in  a 
bit  of  carrion,  unless  his  good  horse  is  stolen,  for  horse  thieves 
are  as  plenty  as  he  goes  south,  as  they  are  scarce  in  the  New 
England  States.  Jockeys  are  no  doubt  to  be  found  in  all  the 
States.  We  have  them  in  Ohio,  but  all  that  I  have  known  came 
here  from  south  of  the  line.  ...  I  was  once  riding  with  an 
esteemed  friend,  and  we  met  with  a  man  who  had  grossly  cheated 
him.  Said  my  friend  to  his  brother  Yankee  "it  is  such  rascals 
as  you  who  when  driven  from  home  settle  where  you  are  not 
known,  but  are  soon  found  out  in  your  old  dirty  tricks,  that 
forty  or  fifty  miles  round  give  a  bad  name  to  all  New  England. " 
As  to  the  dealers  in  horn  gun  flints  and  wooden  nutmegs,  I  give 


3^6  The  Ohio  River 

them  up  to  be  buffeted,  though  the  nutmeg  business  was  not 
so  very  bad  after  all.  A  country  store-keeper  who  had  dealt 
in  the  article,  on  being  asked  about  it,  said  they  were  very  pretty 
looking  nutmegs — made  he  believed  of  saw-dust;  that  those 
made  of  sassafras  were  reasonably  good  but  those  of  elm  or 
beech  "was  n't  worth  a  curse,  " 

For  pure  sagacity  no  "Yankee  trick"  can  surpass 
a  certain  deal  in  pork  which  once  took  place  in  Old 
Virginia,  and  while  it  is  out  of  the  range  of  the  Ohio 
Valley  the  incident  shows  the  character  of  some  of 
the  business  relations  between  southerners  and  north- 
erners which  gained  for  the  latter  the  intense  enmity 
of  the  former.  A  Yankee  skipper  had  unloaded  his 
cargo  of  Hingham  woodenware  at  a  Virginia  river 
port  and  determined  to  invest  his  money  in  a  live- 
stock sale  then  being  advertised.  On  the  day  named 
the  sale  began  with  an  offering  of  hogs  which  were 
divided  into  three  lots  of  seven  hogs  each.  The  terms 
were  cash  down  for  live  weight,  sinking  the  offal. 
Part  of  the  drove  were  fine  and  fat;  many  of  the 
others  were  so  far  under  par  that  they  could  n't  "raise 
a  squeal  or  grunt  without  laying  down  or  leaning 
against  the  wall."  The  first  lot  averaged  near  two 
hundred  pounds,  the  next  one  hundred,  and  the  re- 
mainder, say,  fifty.  The  captain  purchased  one  lot 
at  seven  dollars  per  hundred;  the  mate  took  another 
at  one  dollar  per  hundred,  and  a  sailor  took  the  leavings 
at  fifty  cents  per  hundred. 

When  delivery  was  made  the  captain,  to  the 
amazement  of  all,  chose  the  seven  lean  kine.  A  sur- 
prised buckskin  blurted  out: 

"My,  Captain,  what  a  d — d  fool  you  are;  don't 
you  know  you  've  got  the  choice?" 

"Yes,  I  do,"  was  the  reply,  "and  I  chose  these 


Where  Yankee  and  Virginian  Met         317 

nice  little  roasters."  The  mate  made  choice  of  the 
next  in  size  and  the  "leavings"  fell  to  the  sailor  at 
fifty  cents  per  hundredweight.  And  the  Yankees 
sailed  away.  Had  the  choice  been  made  according  to 
ordinary  methods  the  twenty -one  hogs  would  have 
netted  $50.75;  as  it  was  they  brought  but  $24.50. 

Pork  being  one  of  the  staples  of  the  Ohio  Valley 
it  is  natural  that  the  Yankee  frequently  showed  his 
genius  on  a  hog  dicker.  One  of  these  masters  of 
commerce  was  driving  a  fine  lot  of  hogs  from  Hamilton 
to  Cincinnati;  by  written  contract  they  were  to  be 
sold  to  a  certain  dealer  at  a  given  price  per  pound. 
Finding,  when  within  half  a  dozen  miles  of  the  city, 
that  pork  was  commanding  a  much  better  price  than 
he  was  to  receive  the  drover  scratched  his  head  a  few 
moments  and  then  turned  the  drove  into  a  field  and 
set  out  rapidly  for  the  city.  Finding  the  prospective 
buyer  he  affirmed  that  he  needed  help  to  get  the  pigs 
to  town,  they  were  so  wild  and  "ran  so  awfully  fast." 
The  dealer  jumped  to  the  conclusion  that  the  pigs  lacked 
in  weight  every  bit  that  they  gained  in  speed,  and  at 
once  refused  to  send  any  help,  thereby  hoping  to  break 
the  contract.  With  surprising  equanimity  the  owner 
took  him  at  his  word  and  tore  up  their  agreement. 
He  then  went  back  to  his  drove,  got  them  to  town 
next  day.  and  sold  them  for  a  dollar  more  a  hundred 
than  the  broken  contract  called  for. 

The  matter  of  speed  in  hogs  was  not,  it  may  there- 
fore be  assumed,  a  thing  to  be  prized,  as  a  pork  dealer 
in  Georgetown,  D.  C,  once  had  forcefully  impressed 
on  his  mind.  He  had  bargained  with  a  drover  on 
Buck  Creek,  Ohio,  "who  had  not  been  long  from 
Yankee  land,"  for  a  certain  number  of  hogs.     The 


3i8  The  Ohio  River 

drover  brought  the  hogs  across  the  mountains  and 
down  the  Potomac.  The  buyer  was  to  take  half  the 
lot;  accordingly  the  westerner  stood  in  the  middle 
of  the  Georgetown  bridge  (where  the  division  was  to 
be  made)  and  had  the  hogs  driven  rapidly  across. 
When  exactly  one  half  had  passed  on  a  hog  gallop  the 
Ohioan  leaped  down  and  headed  off  the  remainder 
and  went  his  way  with  them  and  the  money.  He 
was  afterwards  wont  to  say  that  a  man  in  Georgetown, 
D.  C,  owned  what  was  probably  the  swiftest  lot  of 
hogs  in  the  United  States,  but  as  for  him  he  had 
' '  rather  have  heft. ' ' 

In  deals  of  such  character  it  was  the  "sharper" 
who  was  ever  looking  for  a  like  trick  to  be  turned  on 
him.  Thus,  a  certain  pork  dealer  in  making  a  contract 
for  a  lot  of  hogs  for  the  next  season  took  occasion  to 
have  an  iron-clad,  bomb-proof  contract  drawn  up  by 
a  lawyer;  every  possible  contingency  was  anticipated 
and  provided  for;  the  number  of  hogs  was  to  be  any- 
where from  one  to  five  hundred;  the  weight  was  to 
average  so  and  so,  and  delivery  was  to  be  made  at  a 
given  time  and  place,  and  the  drover  was  to  receive 
twenty  dollars  for  the  delivery.  The  contract  covered 
three  foolscap  sheets  in  fine  writing;  the  lawyer's 
fee  was  commensurable.  But  when  the  season  came 
around  pork  had  jumped  in  price  and  it  was  im- 
possible for  the  party  of  the  second  part  to  deliver 
the  goods  without  loss.  The  iron-bound  contract 
had  but  one  weak  spot — the  number  of  the  hogs.  On 
the  day  appointed  the  drover  appeared  on  time  at 
the  right  place  with  the  miminum  number  called  for 
in  the  contract,  one  hog,  and  demanded  the  twenty 
dollars  named  as  the  price  of  delivery.     The  story 


Where  Yankee  and  Virginian  Met        319 

goes  that  however  hard  the  cautious  dealer  sought  a 
loophole  of  escape  from  paying  the  cash  for  delivery 
he  found  none,  though  the  drover  let  him  off  finally 
with  ten  dollars. 

How  far  these  stories,  and  hundreds  like  them, 
can  be  said  to  represent  the  typical  New  Englander 
one  cannot  pretend  to  say.  That  he  used  less  ingenu- 
ity in  trade  in  the  Middle  West  than  elsewhere  through- 
out the  world  we  well  ma}^  doubt.  That  his  very 
clever  ways  won  him  the  general  dislike  of  his  neighbors 
is  clearly  shown  in  a  custom  that  is  reliably  said  to 
have  existed  in  the  public  schools  of  Cincinnati  three 
quarters  of  a  century,  and  less,  ago.  When  a  lad  from 
the  East  came  to  school  for  the  first  time,  he  was 
subjected  to  a  round  of  rough  handling,  not  unlike 
' '  running  the  gauntlet ' ' ;  and  the  ceremony  was  called 
"licking  the  Yankee  out  of  him!" 

But  these  two  w^Onderful  stocks  of  people  should 
not  be  remembered  by  the  lower  and  more  unsavory 
traits.  The  best  blood  in  New  England  went  toward 
founding  Marietta,  Cincinnati,  and  Cleveland.  And 
the  Virginians  w^ho  stepped  rapidly  into  the  Scioto 
Valley  and  founded  Chillicothe  were  men  in  every 
way  worthy  of  their  Virginian  fathers,  the  Washingtons, 
Johnsons,  and  Lees,  without  whom,  even  the  noble 
John  Adams  of  Massachusetts  said,  "there  would  never 
have  been  any  Revolutionary  War. ' '  The  Western 
Reserve  of  Connecticut  was  filled  in  part  from  the 
Nutmeg  State;  and  just  south  of  the  Reserv^e  lay  the 
Seven  Ranges  rapidly  filling  with  immigrants  from 
the  neighboring  State  of  Pennsylvania  and  some  from 
Virginia  and  the  South.  Far  to  the  west,  just  north 
of  the  Symmes  Tract  a  steady  stream  of  Kentucky 


320  The  Ohio  River 

pioneers  was  pouring  into  northwestern  Ohio,  a  fact 
which  must  be  counted  when  an  attempt  is  made  to 
explain  the  strong  partisan  (Democratic)  affiliation 
of  the  most  westerly  tier  of  Ohio  counties  north  of 
the  Symmes  Purchase  area.  Thither  the  Virginians 
swarmed;  for  it  is  an  interesting  fact  to  note  that 
while  the  Cavalier  crossed  the  Ohio  and  occupied  Ohio 
and  Indiana  and  Illinois  in  very  large  numbers,  the 
Yankee  did  not  go  southward  to  any  noticeable  degree. 
True,  New  Englanders  were  pleased  to  remark  that 
many  Yankees  settled  in  the  Ohio  River  towns  on  the 
Virginia  side,  as  in  Wheeling,  giving  to  such  points,  in 
their  opinion,  a  more  hopeful  outlook.^  But  the  Yankee 
went  not  into  Virginia  and  Kentucky  in  the  same  meas- 
ure that  the  Long  Knife  surged  into  the  Old  Northwest. 
The  result  was  a  most  marvellous  cross-breeding 
of  half  a  dozen  different  stocks  between  the  Ohio 
River  and  Lake  Erie,  producing  a  composite  race  of 
unparalleled  energy  and  power. 

On  the  4th  of  March,  1881  [wrote  Colonel  Whittlesey,  one 
of  the  shrewdest  students  of  our  history],  three  men  of  fine 
presence  advanced  on  the  platform  at  the  east  portico  of  the 
Federal  capitol.  On  their  right  is  a  solid,  square-built  man  of 
an  impressive  appearance,  the  Chief  Justice  of  the  United  States 
[Waite].  On  his  left  stood  a  tall,  well-rounded,  large,  self- 
possessed  personage,  with  a  heai  large  even  in  proportion  to 
the  body,  who  is  President  of  the  United  States  [Garfield]. 
At  his  left  hand  was  an  equally  tall,  robust,  and  graceful  gentle- 
man, the  retiring  President  [Hayes].  Near  by  was  a  tall,  not 
especially  graceful  figure,  with  an  eye  of  an  eagle,  who  is  the 
General  commanding  the  Army  [W.  T.  Sherman].  A  short, 
square,  active  officer,  the  Marshal  Ney  of  America,  is  there  as 
Lieutenant    General    [Sheridan].     Another    tall,    slender,    self- 

>  Atwater.  Tour. 


■<#> 


«5. 


A 


Where  Yankee  and  Virginian  Met        321 

poised  man,  of  not  ungraceful  presence,  was  the  focus  of  many 
thousands  of  eyes.  He  had  carried  the  finances  of  the  nation 
in  his  mind  and  in  his  heart  four  years  as  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  the  peer  of  Hamilton  and  Chase  [John  Sherman]. 
Of  these  six,  five  were  natives  of  Ohio,  and  the  other  a  life-long 
resident.  Did  this  group  of  National  characters  from  one  State 
stand  there  by  accident?  Was  it  not  the  result  of  a  long  train 
of  agencies,  which,  by  force  of  natural  selection,  brought  them 
to  the  front  on  that  occasion! 

It  was  for  Senator  Roscoe  Conkling  to  compare 
beautifully  the  people  and  the  soils  of  this  focus- 
region  between  the  Ohio  and  Lake  Erie. 

It  is  said  that  more  than  half  of  them  [soils]  came  from  far 
distant  regions,  clays  and  gravels,  washed  by  the  surge,  and  the 
drift  of  gigantic  primal  forces.  This  is  typical  of  the  people. 
I  see  around  me  those  not  only  from  New  England,  but  from  Old 
England,  from  Ireland,  from  Scotland,  from  cold  Norway  and 
Sweden,  from  warm  and  sunny  France — from  every  clime 
where  humanity  struggles.  What  brought  these  men  and 
women  here?  What  made  Ohio  the  rendezvous  and  asylum 
of  struggling  humanity  in  all  nationalities?  Liberty  and  free 
laboi . 

Ohio,  the  child  of  Virginia,  as  she  rose  from  her  cradle, 
turned  her  back  upon  precepts  and  examples  of  the  mother 
State.  The  people  who  came  here  of  all  nationalities  were 
bound  by  one  common  tie;  they  worshipped  one  God  under 
different  forms  and  they  believe  in  the  fatherhood  of  God  and  the 
brotherhood  of  man.  Here  in  this  soil  parent  and  child  have 
illustrated  two  opposing  systems  of  civilization.  Ohio,  repre- 
senting the  dignity  of  labor,  believing  honest  labor  the  true 
foundation  and  passport  to  all  real  progress  and  greatness,  has 
arisen  like  a  meteor  into  the  very  zenith  of  the  great  republic. 
Virginia,  believing  that  labor  is  degrading,  that  drudgery  is 
menial  and  base,  that  capital  should  own  labor,  has  stagnated 
and  weltered,  half  smothered  in  the  pool  of  servile  labor.  One 
of  these  States  has  prospered  exceedingly;  the  other  has  been 
enervated,  has  remained  prostrate,  has  cursed  and  rebelled,  and 
at  last  drowned  slavery  in  its  own  blood. 

21 


32  2  The  Ohio  River 

The  Ohio  River  became,  in  the  middle  of  the  old 
century  even  more  than  it  was  at  the  beginning,  the 
projection  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line.  The  coalescence 
of  Long  Knife  and  Yankee,  of  Irish,  Quaker,  Scotch- 
Irish,  and  Dutch,  had  progressed  steadily  in  the  Old 
Northwest  for  sixty  years  ere,  in  the  burning  heat  of 
fratricidal  struggle,  it  became  clearer  than  ever  what 
a  marvellous  dividing  line  the  Ohio  River  was.  That 
slavery  clause  in  the  masterly  Ordinance,  kept  sacred 
by  the  conscience  of  immigrants  from  all  parts  of 
the  seaboard,  was  as  a  flaming  sword  stretching  from 
the  AUeghenies  to  the  Mississippi;  and  though  it  di- 
vided homes,  setting  father  against  son  and  brother 
against  brother,  yet,  as  a  people,  those  who  occupied 
the  States  carved  out  of  the  Territory  northwest  of 
the  river  Ohio  were  in  favor  of  the  ancient  prohibition, 
while  those  south  of  the  Ohio  were  as  a  people  in  favor 
of  secession.  In  effect,  the  War  of  the  Rebellion  in 
the  West  was  a  struggle  between  the  son  of  the  Cavalier 
and  the  son  of  the  Puritan;  and  between  them  flowed 
this  wide,  historic  river  on  which  their  fathers  had 
come  to  found  a  new  empire.  The  intermingling  of 
Yankee  and  Long  Knife  in  the  States  of  the  Ohio 
Basin  is  shown  by  the  large  "copperhead"  following 
in  Ohio  and  Indiana  and  Illinois,  on  the  one  hand 
and  the  equally  large  Union  following  in  Kentucky 
and  what  became  West  Virginia  on  the  other.  Yet, 
as  a  whole,  the  two  causes  were  represented  by  the 
two  shores  of  the  river,  especially  below  the  Kentucky 
line,  and  the  history  of  those  four  years  of  war  in  the 
Ohio  Valley  is  a  story  of  mutual  reprisals,  inroads, 
and  bloodshed. 

Few  more  typical  experiences  in  war  time  on  the 


Where  Yankee  and  Virginian  Met        323 

river  are  recorded  than  one  furnished  the  author  by 
the  veteran  steamboatman  Captain  J.  A.  Lempke 
of  Indianapolis,  and  which  we  give  practically  in  the 
captain's  own  words. 

During  the  summer  of  1861,  when  war  feeling  first 
grew  high,  when  the  lower  Mississippi  was  blockaded 
and  its  shores  controlled  by  the  seceding  States,  business 
on  the  Ohio  and  the  Mississippi  was  at  a  complete 
standstill.  Captain  Lempke  had  left  the  port  of  New 
Orleans  for  Louisville  under  Confederate  clearance 
papers  in  April,  to  return  there  no  more.  After  tying 
up  his  boat  below  the  falls  of  the  Ohio  at  Portland, 
the  low-water  harbor  of  the  port  of  Louisville,  he  took 
pains  to  examine  into  the  situation  and  found  that 
he  was  carrying  a  heavy  load  of  debt  as  ballast,  and 
to  go  into  the  war,  as  he  desired,  meant  a  divorce  from 
the  Fanny  Buillit,  his  boat,  that  would  land  him  in 
financial  ruin  and  bankruptcy.  The  time  for  the  use- 
fulness of  boats  had  not  then  arrived,  as  it  did  the  fol- 
lowing winter  and  spring,  when  General  Grant  opened 
his  campaign  on  the  Cumberland  and  Tennessee, 

Captain  Dexter,  with  the  Charley  Bowen,  a 
plucky,  fast,  and  excellent  little  stemwheeler,  which 
the  year  before  he  had  brought  from  the  Muskingum 
River,  was,  under  adverse  circumstances,  straining 
every  nerve  to  carry  the  United  States  mail  two  hundred 
miles  of  the  lower  Ohio  along  the  hostile  and  rebellious 
shores  of  southwestern  Kentucky,  between  Evansville 
and  Cairo,  and  to  establish  a  packet  trade  between 
the  two  points. 

Henry  T.  Dexter  would  forgive  his  enemies,  but 
not  until  after  they  had  been  hanged.  He  was  a 
fearless    champion    of    the   flag    and    an    enthusiastic 


324  The  Ohio  River 

supporter  of  the  Union,  "Who  never  bowed  his  stub- 
bom  knee,  and  least  of  all  to  chivalry. "  As  the  river 
for  some  time  previous  had  been  his  only  field  of  work 
Captain  Lempke  determined  not  to  leave  it  now,  and 
when  Captain  Dexter  asked  him  to  take  the  clerk's 
(piu^ser's)  office  on  his  boat  he  undertook  the  duties 
of  the  position  temporarily  at  nominal  pay,  and  filled 
the  place  of  two  men,  standing  both  day  and  night 
watches  without  help.  In  a  packet  trade,  with  short 
distances  between  landings,  this  meant  much  work  and 
little  sleep.  It  was  an  exhaustive  task,  but  he  worried 
through  it,  and  by  so  doing  made  a  good  friend  of  '  'the 
old  man,"  as  the  commander,  whether  old  or  young, 
is  always  called  on  Ohio  River  boats. 

During  the  early  days  of  the  war  many  annoyances 
occurred  along  the  route,  and  the  "colonels"  on  the 
Kentucky  shore  became  quite  troublesome.  At  Union- 
town,  Caseyville,  and  landings  below,  the  mails,  on 
account  of  the  presence  of  guerrilla  bands  and  small 
detachments  of  Confederate  soldiers,  frequently  could 
not  be  landed.  Dexter  was  known  and  hated  by  the 
Southern  sympathizers  all  along  the  southern  shores 
of  the  river,  for,  outspoken  and  fearless  Union  man 
that  he  was,  he  kept  the  Stars  and  Stripes  flying  at 
the  jackstaff ,  and  would  defend  it  at  the  risk  of  the  loss 
of  his  boat  or  his  life  if  need  be. 

One  morning  early,  when  the  Bowen  was  down- 
stream bound,  its  officer  was  surprised  to  find  moored 
to  the  bank  below  the  mouth  of  the  Cumberland  and 
near  Stewart's  Island  several  steamers  which  had  been 
dispatched  south  by  the  government  as  hospital  boats. 
The  captains  of  these  boats,  without  military  protection 
feared  to  proceed,  for  they  had  received  information 


Where  Yankee  and  Virginian  Met        325 

of  a  large  hostile  force  at  Paducah,  ten  miles  below 
and  a  battery  of  rebel  guns  controlling  the  river. 
This  news  aroused  "the  old  man"  to  activity;  he 
appeared  to  sniff  combat  frcm  afar.  He  went  about 
setting  things  to  rights  and  makmg  preparations  for 
the  fray. 

As  the  Bowen  continued  on  her  trip  the  four- 
pound  cannon  on  her  forecastle,  loaded  with  slugs, 
was  moved  into  place  and  the  mr.tch  lighted ;  the  small 
arms  which  had  been  obtained  on  a  requisition  from 
a  military  company  at  Evansville  were  loaded  and 
distributed  among  the  crew,  the  hot-water  hose  bent 
on  and  connected  to  the  boilers,  and  the  flag  nailed  to 
the  jackstaff .  On  arriving  opposite  the  city  of  Paducah 
the  officers  saw  the  landing  and  wharfboat  covered 
with  a  mob,  densely  packed,  awaiting  the  new  arrival; 
nothing  daunted,  they  "roimded  to,"  and  while  slowly 
approaching  the  shore  Dexter  turned  over  the  command 
of  the  boat  to  Lempke  so  he  might  be  in  immediate 
control  of  the  cannon  on  the  forecastle  and  the  squad 
serving  it.  As  the  temporary  captain  hurried  aloft 
and  assumed  the  exposed  position  of  captain,  on  the 
hurricane  deck,  he  appreciated  that  as  an  easy  and  a 
shining  mark  to  be  picked  off  like  a  squirrel  in  a  tree 
he  outranked  every  one  on  board,  and  felt  more 
nervous  than  proud.  As  the  Bowen  slowly  ap- 
proached the  wharfboat,  which  was  covered  from  end 
to  end  by  a  surging,  armed  mob,  the  crew  recognized 
among  them  men  well  known  to  them  as  fire-eating 
haters  of  the  Stars  and  Stripes,  desperate  and  deter- 
mined. Shouts  went  up  commanding  that  the  flag 
be  lowered  and  the  boat  surrendered,  but  the  plainly 
visible  and  murderous  preparations  held  the  shouters 


o 


26  The  Ohio  River 


in  check  and  kept  them  from  boarding  the  boat. 
Three  or  four  of  the  leaders  came  forward  to  the  edge 
of  the  wharfboat  and  made  a  demand  upon  Captain 
Dexter  to  lower  the  flag  and  surrender  his  boat.  He, 
leaning  against  the  capstan,  retorted : 

"Not  as  long  as  I  have  one  shot  left. " 

As  he  spoke  he  pointed  to  the  little  cannon  on  the 
forecastle,  the  man  with  the  burning  fuse,  and  the 
shining  brass  nozzles  of  death-dealing  hot-water  hose 
in  the  hands  of  Baker,  the  engineer;  then,  raising  his 
hand  toward  the  flag  at  the  jackstaff,  shouted: 

* '  Lower  it  if  you  dare ! ' ' 

While  the  parley  was  going  on,  to  guard  against  a 
sudden  rush  of  the  mob,  Lempke  had  carefully  kept 
the  steamer  in  such  a  position  that  her  nose  barely 
touched  the  lower  comer  of  the  wharfboat,  and  when 
the  word  came  up  that  the  mail  had  been  delivered 
to  the  hands  of  the  United  States  mail  agent,  instead 
of  the  usual  command  to  the  mate  or  deckhand,  "Let 
go,"  Lempke  sang  out  to  the  man  who  "stood  by" 
with  a  sharp  ax,  "Cut  the  line."  The  twang  and 
swish  of  it  as  under  the  strain  it  rebounded  made 
welcome  music,  and  as  the  throttle  flew  wide  open 
the  nimble  little  craft  shot  out  into  the  middle  of  the 
stream  backward.  She  kept  her  face  to  the  enemy 
and  was  careful  not  to  expose  her  flank  until  out  of 
range  of  a  possible  fusillade  from  the  baffled  mob 
on  shore. 

The  war  feeling  and  hatred  for  the  Union  flag  and 
its  defenders  at  the  time  of  the  outbreak  of  the  Rebellion 
ran  high  in  southwestern  Kentucky.  A  detachment 
of  the  Union  soldiers  from  Cairo,  111.,  on  a  raid  into 
that  State  had  shortly  before  captured  and  confiscated 


'J 


o 
a 

o 

I 

a; 
03 


% 


■*  h 


Where  Yankee  and  Virginian  Met        327 

a  steamer  owned  by  Southern  sympathizers  in  Padu- 
cah,  which  was  openly  engaged  in  contraband  traffic 
through  the  hnes  up  the  Tennessee  River.  This  had 
exasperated  the  colonels,  and  the  attack  upon  the 
Bowen  that  day  was  in  reprisal  for  the  loss  of  their 
boat,  and  in  revenge  upon  the  hated  "Yankees,"  but 
the  project  failed.  By  thorough  preparation  and 
stout-hearted  defiance  their  design  was  thwarted.  It 
was  lucky  for  them  that  they  did  not  fire;  a  single 
shot  from  shore  would  have  let  loose  cannon,  mus- 
ketry, and  hot-water  batteries  and  wrought  great 
slaughter  on  the  dense  crowd  numbering  several 
thousand  men,  packed  close  as  they  were  on  the 
wharf  of  the  little  city  that  day.  The  officers  of  the 
Bowen  were  ever  after  thankful  that  the  affair 
had  passed  off  without  loss  of  life;  for  after  the  close 
of  the  war  they  again  entered  into  friendly  relations 
with  these  people  and  some  who  were  participants 
in  the  affair  described  became  stockholders  in  and 
officers  of  the  corporation  which,  in  the  meantime,  had 
increased  to  a  daily  mail  line  maintaining  a  number 
of  fast  and  elegant  side  wheel  steamers  and  doing  a 
prosperous  and  profitable  business. 

From     the     day    when    the     Bowen     stubbornly 
maintained  the  dignity  of  Old  Glorv%  to  the  end  of 
the   war,    through   many   ructions   and   alarums,    the  ' 
little  boat  never  lowered  the  flag.     The  occupation  of  i 
the  territory  surrounding  the  mouths  of  the  Cumberland  j 
and  Tennessee  rivers  by  garrisons  of  the  boys  in  blue  \ 
under  General  Sherman  and  others,   which  followed ' 
soon  after,  quieted  the  friends  and  drove  the  enemies 
south  and  into  the  Confederate  army.     The  Cumber- 
land River  the  following  spring   gave   General   Grant 


328 


The  Ohio  River 


access  to  Fort  Donelson,  and  the  Tennessee,  with  its 
thousand  miles  of  navigable  waters,  opened  for  him 
at  Shiloh  the  door  to  the  heart  of  the  Confederacy. 

After  the  war  there  remained  this  ancient  division 
line,  and  all  down  through  the  years  has  been  sounded 
now  and  again  the  same  old  note  of  rivalry  and  antag- 
onism. In  a  measure  there  is  still  a  contest  in  the 
Ohio  Valley  of  Puritan  and  Cavalier ;  the  public  prints 
often  echo  still  the  pros  and  cons  of  an  endless  argument 
in  which  both  disputants  forever  are  partly  right  and 
partly  wrong.  The  eloquent  Henry  Watterson,  from 
his  desk  at  Louisville,  has  been  the  immemorial 
champion  of  the  old  regime  and  the  continual  critic 
of  what  he  has  styled  "New  England  in  Ohio."  The 
question  to-day  is  very  much  one  of  business  and 
politics,  and  in  this  arena  the  "sharp  Yankee"  and 
the  "swaggering  Southerner"  have  fought  the  problem 
over  again.  It  has  been  a  bitter  disappointment  to 
Kentucky,  for  instance,  not  to  be  able  to  keep  the 
commercial  pace  set  by  her  three  northern  sisters 
across  the  Ohio  River,  who,  because  of  their  strategic 
position,  have  assumed  the  place  in  the  nation  which 
Kentucky  occupied  three  quarters  of  a  century  ago. — 

The  last  fifteen  years  [wrote  Mr.  Watterson  more  than  a 
decade  after  the  Civil  War]  have  been  slowly  but  surely  devel- 
oping a  series  of  forces  unknown  to  the  era  of  simple  movement 
— engineries  of  luxur}'',  culture,  and  wealth — increased  power 
to  the  strong,  diminished  opportunity  to  the  weak — the  astute, 
alert,  and  unprincipled  few  seeking  by  organization  and  artifice, 
the  advantage  they  have  come  to  believe  a  right  over  the  un- 
organized, disorganized  many.  Of  this  emanation  of  commercial 
prosperity — this  New  England  idea — the  offspring  of  excessive 
tariffs  and  an  optimistic  educational  system — Ohio  is  the  repre- 
sentative and  as  such  is  redundant^n  the  cant,  catch-words. 


Where  Yankee  and  Virginian  Met        329 

and  self-conceit  of  the  half  educated  intellectual  pioneer;  the 
pride  of  piety  and  the  misleading  ebullitions  of  a  spurious 
patriotic  elation;  pompous  in  moral  pretence,  ostentatious  in 
aesthetic  displays,  and  as  totally  unconscious  of  the  underflow 
of  depravity  and  crime  as  of  the  touching  philosophy  of  Gold- 
smith's lines: 

"111  fares  the  land,  to  hastening  ills  a  prey. 
Where  wealth  accumulates  and  men  decay. " 

The  answer  to  this  fusillade  was  the  perennial  one, 
caustic  and  haughty : 

Ohio  is  near  Kentucky,  and  a  comparison  is  very  easily  made. 
These  are  two  great  States  in  their  extent,  fertility,  and  natural 
resources.  In  these  particulars  Ohio  is  in  no  wise  superior. 
The  census  reports  show  the  relative  conditions  of  these  States. 
The  statistics  of  the  Postofhce  Department  throw  some  light 
upon  their  relative  reading  and  writing  capacity.  Yet  more, 
the  manners  and  style  of  life  of  the  people  are  very  well  known. 
If  there  is  anything  in  the  comparison  in  the  least  flattering  to 
Kentucky,  I  hope  Mr,  Watterson  will  enjoy  it. 

Such  is  a  sample  of  newspaper  banter  in  our  day 
and  it  is  not  without  its  significance. 

Yet  so  far  as  the  advancement  of  the  northern 
States  in  the  Ohio  Basin  is  concerned  we  pointed  out  the 
secret  of  it— geographical  position  combined  with  a 
marvellous  race-mixture.  For  it  is  not  at  all  sure  that 
the  good  New  England  stock  would  have  made  the 
Old  Northwest  what  it  has  been  if  not  strengthened 
by  the  cross-breeding  we  have  described. 


Chapter  XIV 
When  the  Steamboat  was  Kin-g 

THE  steamer  Clermont  sailed  on  the  Hudson 
River,  to  the  wonder  of  all  eyes,  in  1807. 
Fulton  was  quick  to  take  complete  advantage 
of  his  triumph  and  immediately  began  to  se- 
cure monopoly  rights  and  supply  other  rivers  with  his 
boats.  The  Ohio,  with  its  tremendous  possibilities 
commercially,  early  attracted  his  attention  and  in 
less  than  three  years  his  agents  were  in  the  West. 

In  December,  1810,  the  Ohio  Steamboat  Navigation 
Company  was  incorporated  by  Daniel  D.  Tompkins, 
Robert  R.  Livingston,  DeWitt  Clinton,  Robert  Fulton, 
and  Nicholas  J.  Roosevelt;  the  company  was  to  operate 
steamers  on  the  western  waters  under  the  Fulton- 
Livingston  patents. 

The  last  named  incorporator,  N.  J.  Roosevelt,  a 
brother  of  President  Theodore  Roosevelt's  grand- 
father, seems  to  have  been  the  chief  promoter  of  the 
Ohio  branch  of  Fulton's  great  business.  While  his 
boat,  the  New  Orleans,  was  on  the  ways  Zadoc 
Cramer,  editor  of  The  Navigator,  penned  the  following 
words  which  no  doubt  expressed  the  exact  wonder 
and  suspense  entertained  by  the  entire  Ohio  Valley's 
population : 

It  will  be  a  novel  sight,  and  as  pleasing  as  novel,  to  see  a  huge 
boat  working  her  way  up  the  windings  of  the  Ohio,  without  the 

530 


When  the  Steamboat  was  King  331 

ippearance  of  sail,  oar,  pole,  or  any  manual  labour  about  her — 
noving  within  the  secrets  ofher  own  wonderful  mechanism  and 
Dropelled  by  power  undiscoverable.  This  plan,  if  it  succeeds, 
nust  open  up  to  view  flattering  prospects  to  an  immense  country, 
m  interior  of  not  less  than  2,000  miles  of  as  fine  a  soil  and 
;limate  as  the  worid  can  produce,  and  to  a  people  worthy 
)f  all  the  advantages  that  nature  and  art  can  give  them.  .  .  . 

This  thoughtful  writer's  suggestion  that  possibly 
Pulton's  successful  experiment  on  the  Hudson  would 
Drove  a  failure  on  the  Ohio  is  interesting  though  veiled, 
^s  the  New  Orleans  was  building,  many  must  have 
expressed  their  doubts  of  its  success,  for  the  broad 
tide-water  Hudson  was  a  vastly  different  stream  froni 
this  winding,  snag-strewn  Ohio.  Surely  if  the  new 
x)at  could  master  that  thousand  miles  of  reefs  and 
mags  and  shifting  bars,  steam  navigation  would  become 
ill  its  boasting  advocates  were  prophesying! 

The  boat  had  a  keel  138  feet  long  and  its  total 
Durden  was  three  hundred  tons;  it  was  launched  in 
March,  181 1,  and  in  the  following  October  set  sail  for 
the  South  amid  the  applause  of  infant  Pittsburg.  The 
Roosevelt  family  were  its  passengers;  one  Baker 
tvas  engineer,  and  Andrew  Jack,  the  pilot ;  six  ' '  hands, ' ' 
kvith  some  domestics,  completed  the  famous  crew  of 
the  first  steamer  that  floated  on  the  River  of  Many 
White  Caps. 

The  engine  was  fired  with  coal  but  the  bunkers 
were  soon  exhausted,  since  the  marvellous  rate  of 
nearly  eight  miles  an  hour  was  attained,  and  the  woods 
were  soon  called  upon  to  give  up  their  beech  and 
sycamore  to  feed  the  hungry  fire-box. 

The  amazement  of  the  countryside  was  great; 
crowds  flocked  to  the  Ohio's  shore  to  witness  the 
strange   craft.     Some   at   a   distance   from   the   river, 


332  The  Ohio  River 

hearing  the  noise  but  seeing  only  the  smoke,  declared 
that  a  comet  had  fallen  into  the  river.  A  local  his- 
torian records  that  at  Point  Pleasant,  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Great  Kanawha, 

landing  for  an  hour  was  made  for  cord-wood,  which  could  only 
be  obtained  by  begging  the  courtesy  of  the  keeper  of  the  "Trav- 
eller's Rest,"  who  could  illy  spare  so  much  from  his  tavern 
store.  While  the  wood  was  being  toted  aboard  the  singular 
craft  nearly  all  the  one  hundred  inhabitants  examined,  com- 
mented, criticised.  Some  claimed  it  was  an  attempt  to  chain 
nature's  forces  and  would  end  in  disaster  to  crew  and  owners, 
a  mere  invention  of  the  devil's.  Others  watched  every  move- 
ment, took  notes  of  all  machinery,  and  resolved  to  "make  a  like 
machine  or  spoil  a  home.  " 

The  date  of  the  sailing  of  the  New  Orleans  is  in- 
terestingly noted  if  not  proved  by  the  following  remi- 
niscence of  P.  S.  Bush,  an  old  resident  of  Covington : 

In  the  fall  of  the  year  1811,  after  the  embargo  was  laid  on 
English  vessels,  and  before  the  earthquakes  of  December  1811, 
my  father  was  residing  on  the  Ohio  River,  nearly  opposite 
General  Harrison's  farm  at  North  Bend.  The  family  was  one 
day  much  surprised  at  seeing  the  young  Mr.  Weldons  running 
down  the  river  much  alarmed,  and  shouting,  "the  British  are 
coming  down  the  river."  There  had  of  course  been  a  current 
rumor  of  a  war  with  that  power.  All  the  family  immediately 
ran  to  the  bank — We  saw  something,  I  knew  not  what,  but 
supposed  it  was  a  saw  mill  from  the  working  of  the  lever  beam, 
making  its  slow  but  solemn  progress  with  the  current.  We 
were  shortly  afterwards  informed  that  it  was  a  steamboat. 

After  a  month's  delay  at  the  Falls  at  Louis- 
ville the  New  Orleans  proceeded  onward,  reaching 
Natchez  in  December,  where  it  entered  regularly  into 
the  New  Orleans  and  Mississippi  trade.  Its  first  year 
was  immensely  successful,  partly  due,  no  doubt,  to 
the  curiosity  it  attracted.  Its  captain  in  181 2,  one 
Morris,  records: 


When  the  Steamboat  was  King 


o  1  -1 


The  boat's  receipts  for  freight  upwards  has  averaged  the 
ast  year  $700;  passage  money,  $900;  downwards,  freight  $300; 
ind  $500  for  passengers.  She  performs  thirteen  trips  during 
he  year,  which  at  $2,400  per  trip  amounts  to  $31,200.  Herex- 
)enses  are  twelve  hands,  at  $30,  per  month  each,  equal  to  $4,320; 
Captain's  salary,  $1000;  seventy  cords  of  wood  each  trip,  at 
;i.75  per  cord,  equal  to  $1,586;  total  expenses  being  $6,906. 
t  is  presumed  that  the  boat's  extra  trips  for  pleasure,  or  other- 
vise,  out  of  her  usual  route,  has  paid  for  all  the  expenses  of 
epairs;  and  with  the  profits  of  the  bar-room,  for  the  boat's 
)rovisions;  in  which  case  there  will  remain  a  net  gain  of  $24,294 
or  the  first  year.  The  owners  estimate  the  boat's  value  at 
140,000,  which  produces  an  interest  of  $2,400,  and  by  giving 
;i,894  more  for  furniture,  etc.,  we  have  a  clear  gain  of  $20,000 
or  the  first  year's  labor  of  the  steamer  "New  Orleans."  This 
3  a  revenue  superior  to  any  other  established  in  the  United 
States,  and  what  is  equally  gratifying,  arising  out  of  a  capital 
i^hose  application  is  of  singular  benefit  to  the  whole  community, 
,nd  particularly  so,  as  it  respects  the  navigation  of  the  Western 
iraters. 

But  the  prophecy  of  the  doubters  was,  seemingly, 
ulfilled,  nevertheless.  The  New  Orleans  did  not  re- 
urn;  it  plied  the  lower  Mississippi  as  the  Clermont 
)lied  the  Hudson,  but  a  steamer  was  yet  to  ascend 
hat  mazy  Ohio  channel  up  which  only  the  blundering 
)arges  had  been  so  painfully  crawling  for  some  two 
generations  past.  Two  more  steamers  were  built, 
he  Comet  in  181 2,  a  small  affair  of  twenty-five 
ons,  and  the  Vesuvius,  of  390  tons,  in  18 14.  This 
hip,  built  on  the  Fulton  pattern  at  Pittsburg,  went  to 
'^ew  Orleans  but  on  the  return  trip  grounded  in  the 
Mississippi ;  it  then  went  into  the  New  Orleans-Natchez 
rade,  as  had  the  New  Orleans — and  another  3^ear 
)assed  without  a  steamer's  ascending  the  Mississippi 
o  the  Ohio.     The  Enterprise,  of   seventy-five  tons, 


334  The  Ohio  River 


o 


built  at  Brownsville,  Pennsylvania,  in  service  in  1814, 
was  impressed  by  General  Andrew  Jackson  at  New 
Orleans.  In  May,  181 5,  she  sailed  from  New  Orleans 
for  Louisville,  and  was  the  first  steamer  to  overcome 
the  Mississippi  and  Ohio  currents.  The  time  of  the 
trip  was  twenty-five  days;  but  the  fact  that  both  the 
rivers  were  out  of  banks,  permitting  the  boat  to  make 
numerous  * '  cut-offs ' '  and  sail  almost  constantly  in  still 
water  or  backwater,  tended  to  neutralize  the  applause 
which  greeted  her  feat;  people  still  maintained  that 
in  ordinary  water  no  steamer  could  ascend  the  Ohio. 

It  was  for  the  good  ship  Washington,  built  at 
Wheeling  and  Brownsville,  finally  to  reassure  a  doubt- 
ing world.  This  boat  was  built  under  the  personal 
supervision  of  her  master,  Captain  Henry  M.  Shreve  ^ ; 
the  hull  was  built  at  Wheeling,  partly  from  battle- 
scarred  timbers  of  old  Fort  Henry;  the  engines  were 
built  at  the  great  Monongahela  port.  Everything 
was  on  original  lines;  the  boat  was  a  "double-decker, " 
the  first  of  its  kind;  the  cabin  was  located  between 
decks,  and  the  boilers  were  placed  on  deck  instead  of  in 
the  hold  as  was  usual.  Shreve  improved  on  both  the 
Fulton  and  French  patents,  putting  his  cylinders  in  a 
horizontal  position  and  giving  the  vibrations  to  the 
pitman;  a  double  high-pressure  engine,  with  cranks  at 
right  angles,  was  installed,  also  the  first  of  that  kind 
ever  used  on  western  waters.  Shreve  added  to  David 
Prentice's  cam  wheels  his  "great  invention  of  the  cam 
cut-off,  with  flues  to  the  boilers,  by  which  three  fifths 

'  Henry  M.  Shreve  was  born  in  New  Jersey  in  1785  and  died  in  185 1,  and 
was  one  of  the  most  noted  steamboatmen  of  the  early  days.  He  was  the 
inventor  of  the  steam  snag-boat  and  did  valiant  service  on  the  lower 
Mississippi  in  the  War  of  1812.  According  to  the  diary  of  his  father, 
Shreveport,  La.,  was  named  for  him. 


o 

o 
U 

a; 


.iDnm  ^ 


When  the  Steamboat  was  King  335 

of  the  fuel  were  saved.  "  ^  On  September  24,  18 16,  the 
new  boat  passed  over  the  falls  at  Louisville  on  her 
first  trip  to  New  Orleans.  There  Edward  Livingston 
examined  the  boat  and  remarked  to  the  ingenious 
Shreve:  "You  deserve  well  of  your  country,  young 
man;  but  we  shall  be  compelled  to  beat  you  in  court 
if  we  can."  Fulton  and  Livingston  claimed  the  sole 
right  to  navigate  the  western  waters.  The  case  was 
a  critical  one  but  Shreve  was  undaunted;  he  denied 
the  constitutionality  of  the  plantiffs'  monopoly  and 
the  District  Court  of  Louisiana  negatived  their  so- 
called  "exclusive  rights." 

The  Washington  returned  to  Louisville  and  on 
March  12,  181 7,  began  her  second  trip  to  New  Orleans, 
returning  to  Louisville  in  forty-one  days,  round  trip 
time.  The  performance  was  greeted  everywhere  with 
great  applause;  after  this  second  trip  from  New  Or- 
leans to  Louisville  no  one  doubted  the  place  and  future 
power  of  the  steamboat.  Captain  Shreve  was  feted 
in  Louisville  and  wild  prophecies  were  made  that  the 
trip  from  New  Orleans  to  Louisville  would  some  day 
be  made  by  steamers  in  ten  days!  (In  thirty-six 
years  it  was  made  in  105  hours.) 

The  commencement  of  steam  navigation  in  the 
Mississippi  Valley  dates  from  this  second  northern 
trip  of  the  Washington  in  181 7.  Immediately  a 
score  of  shipyards  were  constructed,  and  in  the  next 

>  Our  quotation  is  from  James  T.  Lloyd's  intensely  interesting  volume, 
Steamboat  Directory  and  Disasters  on  the  Western  Waters,  containing  the 
history  of  the  First  Application  of  Steam  as  a  Motive  Power.  Cincinnati, 
1856.  The  reliability  of  this  volume  is  often  open  to  question.  Mr. 
Lloyd,  for  instance,  has  the  Washington  explode  and  bum  to  the  water's 
edge  in  1816  and  in  the  next  year  make  its  famous  run  from  New  Orleans 
to  Louisville. 


336  The  Ohio  River 

generation  such  a  large  number  of  steamboats  were 
launched  that  the  Mississippi  Basin,  in  point  of  shipping 
tonnage,  sprang  to  the  front  and  in  the  middle  of  the 
century  led  the  world.  Nowhere  has  the  old  adage 
"Necessity  is  the  mother  of  invention"  been  illus- 
trated more  excellently  than  just  here  in  the  history 
of  Ohio  River  navigation.  The  growing  commerce 
of  a  rich  empire  innocent  of  roads  gave  zest  to  the 
struggles  of  ingenious  men,  such  as  Captain  Shreve. 
Active  and  resourceful  brains  gave  themselves  to  the 
problem  of  fitting  the  steamboat  to  the  needs  of  the 
time.  For  instance,  the  earliest  boats  had  model  hulls, 
built  like  the  sea-going  ships  that  preceded  them.  We 
have  seen  that  Captain  Shreve  hoisted  his  engine  out 
of  the  hold,  but  it  was  some  time  before  any  man  dared 
to  build  a  boat  without  a  hold.  The  early  boats  were 
built  to  run  in  the  water,  but  at  last  some  level-headed 
schemer  (at  whom  people  no  doubt  jeered)  decided  that 
they  could  run  on  the  water  better  than  in  it. 

Thus  in  a  moment's  time  a  great  change  and  a 
great  advance  was  made;  steamboats  were  built  as 
fiat  on  the  bottom  as  the  flattest  old-time  "broad- 
horn";  the  difference  was  as  great  as  though  the 
volume  of  water  in  the  Ohio  had  been  trebled,  for  the 
new  boats  drew  only  a  third  as  much  water  as  the  old. 
With  this  discovery  the  complete  success  of  the  western 
steamboat  was  assured.  In  1819  there  were  sixty- 
three  steamers  on  the  Ohio;  in  1832  there  were  230 
steamboats  west  of  the  Alleghenies,  sixty  per  cent, 
of  which  were  over  120  tons  burden.  The  total  cost 
of  running  these  boats  was  about  four  and  one  half 
millions.  Ten  years  later  there  were  450  boats  in  the 
West,  costing  ten  millions  a  year  to  operate. 


, 


When  the  Steamboat  was  King  337 

In  1842  forty-five  boats  were  built  at  Cincinnati, 
thirty-five  at  Louisville  and  vicinity,  twenty-five  at 
Pittsburg,  and  fifteen  at  other  points,  with  a  combined 
tonnage  of  26, 788.  At  the  same  time  the  total  shipping 
tonnage  of  the  Great  Lakes  was  only  17,652,  and  of 
New  York  City  only  35,260.  The  total  tonnage  of  the 
entire  British  Empire  in  1834  was  but  82,696,  and  of 
the  entire  Atlantic  seaboard  (including  New  York, 
Baltimore,  Philadelphia,  Boston,  etc.)  but  76,064; 
while  the  total  tonnage  of  the  Mississippi  and  Ohio 
rivers  was  126,278!  Nothing  could  illustrate  the 
tremendous  strides  of  the  steamboat  in  the  West  so 
effectively  as  these  all  but  incredible  figures. 

In  a  large  measure  the  Ohio  steamboats  were  owned 
by  private  persons  and  frequently  were  operated  in 
person  by  their  owner  or  chief  owner.  The  results  of 
this  condition  were  manifold,  chief  of  which  was  the 
rivalries  that  sprang  up — as  intense  as  any  rivalry 
horse  owners  every  knew.  Competition  was  intense, 
extending  into  every  department  of  the  business; 
competitors  vied  with  each  other  in  size  of  boats, 
equipments,  embellishments,  capacity,  and  speed.  Dur- 
ing the  decade  1 830-1 840  the  art  of  rendering  steam- 
boats palatial  in  every  detail  reached  a  ridiculous 
climax;  this  might  well  be  called  the  Gingerbread 
Era  in  steamboat  history;  the  boats  were  decorated 
with  a  mass  of  glittering,  flimsy  material  fit  only  for 
show.  One  by  one  these  fancy  features  gave  way  to 
the  practical.  In  1834,  it  is  said,  the  ship-heads, 
bowsprits,  figureheads,  and  chains  were  discarded. 
The  models  of  the  steamboats  of  the  forties  evinced 
great  improvement,  being  longer,  of  less  draught,  and 
faster  than  those  of  the  decade  preceding.     The  hulls 


338  The  Ohio  River 

were  stauncher  and  contained  less  weight  of  timber; 
the  cabins  gained  in  comfort  and  convenience  at  the 
expense  of  gaudiness. 

And  yet  these  boats,  in  the  heyday  of  the  passen- 
ger steamer  era,  were  veritable  palaces  for  their  time. 
These  years  were  those  of  the  two  decades  prior  to  the 
Civil  War,  especially  1 840-1 850.  The  prosperity  of 
the  lower  Mississippi  plantations  was  very  great  and 
New  Orleans  outranked,  in  point  of  shipping  tonnage, 
New  York  and  the  entire  Atlantic  seaboard  cities 
combined.  ^  Money  flowed  northward  in  vast  quanti- 
ties to  St.  Louis,  Louisville,  Cincinnati,  and  Pittsburg. 
The  opulent  upper  class  travelled  much  on  pleasure 
and  business  and  the  steamer's  deck  in  1845  was  the 
fashion  plate  of  the  day.  As  will  be  seen  large  sums 
of  money  were  carried  and  the  gaming  tables  were  one 
of  the  requisites  of  every  fast-flying,  fashionable  packet. 
Large  sums  were  won  and  lost  and  every  boat  was  a 
rendezvous  of  professional  men-at-chance,  not  less 
proficient  than  those  who  haunt  the  modern  Atlantic 
liner,  and  a  deal  more  outspoken  and  chivalrous. 
They  fleeced  the  unwitting  planter  with  all  the  grace 
in  the  world  and  invited  him  to  let  them  know  when 
next  he  roamed  abroad  and  then  loaned  him  a  small 
stake  for  his  return  passage. 

We  have  compared  the  old-time  steamer  to  the 
race-horse,  and  the  comparison  was  altogether  fitting. 
Only  a  slight  knowledge  of  the  travelling  public  of 
that  day  is  necessary  to  realize  how  much  the  quality 
of  speed  would  be  prized;  it  was  the  one  great  desid- 

>  In  1842  the  steamboat  tonnage  accredited  to  New  Orleans  was 
80,993;  the  entire  combined  tonnage  of  all  the  Atlantic  seaboard  cities 
was  only  76,064.  See  Memorial  of  the  Citizens  of  Cincinnati  .  .  .  to 
Congress,  Cincinnati,   1844. 


•-a 

> 

u 


a 

in 


When  the  Steamboat  was  Kinor  339 


eratum.  The  records  of  arrivals  and  departures  of 
boats  were  the  study  of  owners  and  rivals  and  the  pub- 
lic at  large.  New  devices  for  generating  great  heat  in 
the  shortest  space  of  time  absorbed  the  attention  of 
engineers,  who  soaked  their  coal  in  rosin  and  opened 
so  many  draughts  that  the  fires  all  but  dropped  out. 
And  it  is  interesting  that  during  the  middle  decades 
of  the  century  records  were  made  that  have  never 
again  been  equalled.  The  story  of  the  building  of  the 
far-famed  /.  M.  White,  and  her  record  run  from 
New  Orleans  to  St.  Louis  is  of  sufficient  interest  and 
value  to  repeat  in  detail. 

This  boat  was  built  at  the  home  of  the  renowned 
Monongahela  Farmer,  Elizabeth,  Pennsylvania,  in 
the  summer  of  1 844  in  what  was  known  as  the  ' '  upper 
yard, "  owned  and  operated  by  Samuel  Walker,  Sr. 
Her  builder  was  J.  M.  Converse  of  St.  Louis,  the  funds 
being  furnished  by  Robert  Chauteau  of  the  same 
city.  ^  It  was  William  King,  familiarly  known  as 
"Billy"  King  to  a  whole  generation  of  rivermen, 
however,  who  draughted  the  boat  and  made  a  lasting 
reputation.  He  designed  the  boat  so  that  she  would 
get  added  speed  from  her  draught;  his  calculation  was 
to  make  the  boat  produce  but  two  swells  under  way, 
one  midway  under  the  boilers  and  one  under  the  wheels. 
The  master- thought  of  the  scheme  was  to  set  the  wheels 
just  where  they  would  catch  the  forward  swell  and 
make  the  most  of  it. 

King    drew    his   plans    and    submitted    them    to 

>  Our  facts  are  largely  taken  from  the  "Boat  Building  Centennial 
Edition"  of  the  Elizabeth,  Pa.,  Herald  (June  7,  1900),  a  most  valuable 
compilation  prepared  by  Editor  Wylie.  The  story  of  the  J.  M.  White 
had  previotisly  been  written  by  John  A.  Lambert,  of  the  Somerset 
Standard. 


340  The  Ohio  River 

Converse,  who  at  once  noted  the  variation  from  the  time- 
tried  pattern  and  opposed  it.  King  was  a  man  of 
few  words;  to  the  criticism  of  Converse,  who  frankly 
said  the  boat  would  be  mined  by  such  a  radical  de- 
parture as  placing  the  wheel  beams  twenty  feet  farther 
aft  than  usual,  King  made  almost  no  reply  except 
that  he  should  build  the  boat  on  those  lines  or  not  at 
all. 

Converse  went  to  Walker  [writes  Mr.  Lambert]  and  told 
him  where  King  wanted  to  place  the  beams,  and  what  he  had 
said  to  King. 

"And  what  did  King  say?"  asked  Walker.  "He  did  n't 
say  anything."  "Well,"  said  Walker,  "if  he  has  made  up  his 
mind  to  put  them  there  he'  11  do  it  or  he  won't  finish  the  boat. 
You  had  better  write  Chauteau  and  ask  his  advice."  Converse 
wrote  to  Chauteau  at  once,  explaining  the  matter  fully,  saying 
that  if  the  wheels  were  placed  where  King  wanted  to  put  them 
the  boat  would  be  spoiled.  The  reply  came  in  due  time,  and  it 
was  brief  enough:    "Let  King  put  beams  where  he  pleases." 

That  settled  it,  and  Converse  did  not  interfere  further  with 
King's  plans.  The  keenness  of  King's  judgment  was  eloquently 
told  by  his  masterpiece,  when  she  made  her  famous  run  from 
New  Orleans  to  St.  Louis  in  three  days,  twenty-three  hours, 
and  nine  minutes. 

That  run  of  the  "J.  M.  White"  made  "Billy"  King  famous, 
and  the  steamboat  owners  of  St.  Louis  besought  him  with 
princely  offers  to  draft  a  steamboat  that  would  beat  her  time, 
but  he  refused  to  do  so.  He  simply  said:  "If  anv  man  drafts 
a  boat  that  shall  beat  her  time,  I  will  then  draft  one  to  beat 
that." 

After  the  "J.  M.  White"  had  been  worn  out  it  dawned  upon 
steamboatmen  that  there  had  never  been  a  boat  that  equalled 
her  in  speed,  and  they  then  tried  to  secure  her  draft.  This 
King  refused  to  surrender,  and  no  other  man  had  a  copy  of  it 
or  could  duplicate  it. 

It  was  not  known  that  King  had  made  a  model  of  the  "White," 
but  he  had.     After  building  the  "White"  he  went  to  St.  Louis 


When  the  Steamboat  was  King         341 

in  the  employ  of  a  boat-building  company.  His  wife  remained 
at  Elizabeth  for  some  time.  About  four  months  after  he  had 
gone  to  St.  Louis,  King  wrote  to  a  friend  at  Elizabeth — John 
Lambert,  Sr.,  father  of  the  writer — and  this  is  briefly  the  sub- 
stance of  what  he  said  in  the  letter:  "Bring  my  wife  to  St. 
Louis  as  soon  as  she  can  get  ready.  Go  into  the  attic  of  my 
house,  and  close  under  the  comb  of  the  roof  you  will  find  a  model 
in  a  box;  bring  that  box  with  you,  and  don't  open  it  or  allow 
any  one  to  see  it.  Lock  it  in  a  stateroom  on  the  boat,  and  leave 
it  there  until  you  reach  St.  Louis.  I  will  pay  all  expenses." 
When  this  gentleman  went  to  Mrs.  King  with  the  letter  she  knew 
nothing  of  the  model.  "If  there  is  one  in  the  attic,"  she  said, 
"I  don't  know  when  he  put  it  there."  The  box  was  found, 
however,  where  King  said  it  was,  and  was  taken  to  St.  Louis 
as  requested. 

King  met  his  wife  and  the  gentleman  on  their  arrival,  and 
his  first  inquiry  after  greeting  them  was  concerning  the  model. 
Being  told  that  it  was  locked  up  on  the  boat,  he  went  for  it  and 
carried  it  to  his  home,  where  he  at  once  opened  the  box  in  the 
presence  of  the  gentleman  who  had  taken  it  to  St.  Louis.  It 
was  probably  never  seen  by  any  other  person  than  King,  his 
wife,  and  the  gentleman  referred  to.  It  was  a  beautiful  model 
made  of  pine  and  black  walnut.  It  was  ten  feet  two  inches 
long,  and  otherwise  in  beautiful  proportion.  Without  saying 
a  word  King  went  to  his  tool-chest,  took  therefrom  a  saw,  and 
cut  the  model  into  several  pieces,  then  with  a  hatchet  completed 
its  destruction  by  cutting  it  into  kindling  wood.  The  gentleman 
present  said,  "Say,  Billy,  I  could  have  done  that  at  home  just  as 
well  as  you  have,  and  saved  you  the  expense  of  bringing  it  here." 
"That  may  all  be,"  rephed  King,  "but  I  never  would  have  been 
satisfied  that  it  had  been  done." 

King  said  at  the  time  that  he  still  had  a  draft  of  the  "White" 
on  paper,  but,  although  it  was  sought  for  time  and  again  by  men 
who  would  have  given  a  fortune  for  it,  it  has  never  been  found, 
and  the  equal  of  the  famous  "  J.  M.  White  "  has  never  been  built. 

It  is  believed  that  an  "exhibition"  model  of  the 
great    racer    was    a    prized    ornament    of    Secretary 


342  The  Ohio  River 

Stanton  s    office    at    the    War    Department    during 
Lincoln's  administration. 

A  boat  launch  was  always  an  inspiring  sight,  and 
the  occasions  were  made  to  some  extent  gala  days. 
Crowds  gathered  to  see  the  sight,  and  usually  a  goodly 
number  went  on  the  boat  for  her  first  plunge  into  the 
water.  Sometimes  there  was  the  christening  cere- 
mony by  breaking  a  bottle  of  wine  over  the  bow  of 
the  vessel,  but  that  custom  never  became  very  general. 
In  those  early  days,  when  it  was  considered  only  a 
part  of  hospitality  to  pass  the  decanter  glass  to  all 
who  came  beneath  one's  roof,  the  sturdy  old  boat 
builders  seemed  to  think  that  a  better  use  could  be 
found  for  liquor  than  the  pouring  of  it  over  oaken 
planks. 

A  large  vessel  of  egg-nog  was  always  prepared  for  a  launch, 
and  had  a  prominent  place  in  the  yard  shed,  with  tin  cups 
convenient,  and  a  general  invitation  to  all  to  participate.  Later 
this  sometimes  gave  place  to  a  keg  of  ale,  and  this  was  seen  even 
in  the  later  years  of  the  industry  at  the  upper  yard.  But  the 
growth  of  temperance  sentiment  finally  led  to  the  omission  of 
this  once  always  present  feature  of  a  launch. 

Another  early  custom  was  the  firing  of  a  cannon  just  as  the 
boat  glided  down  the  ways,  but  a  tragic  occurrence  led  to  the 
abandonment  of  this  feature. 

The  boat  was  usually  built  so  as  to  go  into  the  river  stem 
foremost,  though  occasionally  it  was  let  in  sidewise.  It  was  set 
up  on  blocks  under  the  keel  and  "shores"  (posts)  around  the 
sides.  Before  the  launch  two  ways  were  constructed  under  the 
boat  and  leading  by  an  easy  declivity  to  the  river.  These  were 
thoroughly  greased  and  then  timbers  to  slide  were  laid  on  them 
and  the  space  between  that  and  the  bottom  of  the  boat  built 
up  with  blocks.  Each  way  and  slide  was  firmly  lashed  together 
at  one  point  by  a  rope  passed  around  and  around  them. 

Then  the  blocks  were  removed  from  under  the  keel,  and  at 
a  command  the  shores  were  knocked  from  under  the  sides  of 


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When  the  Steamboat  was  King  343 

the  ly>at.  The  men  were  distributed  along  both  sides  of  the 
vessel  for  this  work,  and  during  the  minutes  that  it  lasted  there 
was  a  bedlam  of  sound,  as  the  many  mauls  descended  on  the 
shores  and  they  were  one  by  one  knocked  from  their  places. 
This  done,  only  the  "lashings"  held  the  boat  to  the  spot  where 
she  had  slowly  grown  into  being,  and  a  man  with  a  keen  edged, 
broad-bladed  axe  stood  beside  each  of  these,  ready  to  strike 
the  blow  which  would  sever  the  cords  and  release  the  vessel, 
poised  and  eager  for  her  element  of  the  future. 

It  is  a  time  of  suppressed  excitement.  The  din  of  the  blows 
and  the  falling  shores  is  suddenly  succeeded  by  a  silence  that 
is  intense.  Every  breath  is  held,  all  listen  for  the  words  which 
shall  free  the  vessel,  tugging  as  a  hound  at  the  leash.  Soon  it 
comes  in  the  sharp  command,  "Cut  lashings!"  The  gleaming 
axes  descend — the  cords  are  severed — the  vessel  starts,  moving 
slowly  at  first,  but  soon  gaining  momentum,  and  gliding  with 
ever-increasing  speed  down  the  ways  until  she  strikes  the  water 
with  a  great  splash,  and  a  moment  later  rides  proudly  on  the 
bosom  of  the  river,  a  thing  of  grace  and  beauty. 

There  is  a  volume  bound  appropriately  in  sombre 
black  to  which  we  have  briefly  referred  on  a  previous 
page,  Lloyd's  Steamboat  Directory  and  Disasters  on  West- 
ern Waters.  The  most  superficial  glance  at  this  book  will 
prove  to  the  reader  what  a  blood-red  chapter  could  be 
written  on  the  steamer  disasters  of  the  Ohio  River. 
There  was  danger  enough,  Heaven  knows,  to  these  early 
boats  in  the  way  of  reefs,  shoals,  bars,  wrecks,  and  snags ; 
but  for  a  long  period  the  danger  of  travelling  was 
immeasurably  increased  by  attempts  to  make  record 
runs,  or  beat  the  rival  boat.  As  for  the  natural 
obstructions  some  facts  are  a  matter  of  history.  In 
1866,  for  instance,  when  a  careful  examination  of  the 
Ohio  was  made  it  was  found  that  there  were  twenty- 
eight  sunken  wrecks  alone  between  Pittsburg  and 
Wheeling;  in  the  six  hundred  miles  between  Pittsburg 


344  The  Ohio  River 

and  Louisville  there  were  seventy-five  dangerous 
snags,  forty-nine  "logs  and  loggy  places,"  and  one 
hundred  wrecks  and  sunken  boats  and  a  total  of  252 
obstruction  points  of  great  danger.  Ten  thousand 
"obstructions"  had  been  removed  from  the  Ohio  in 
the  twenties  and  thirties,  when  the  work  suddenly 
ceased.  Every  sunken  boat  or  wreck  endangered 
every  other  craft  afloat,  and  as  many  of  these  obstruc- 
tions lay  in  or  perilously  near  the  narrow  channel, 
a  gale  of  wind,  a  fog,  or  an  error  in  navigation  frequently 
proved  fatal  to  passing  ships. 

But  criminal  carelessness  of  crews  was  responsible 
for  the  most  disastrous  tragedies  of  Ohio  steamboat 
annals.  The  explosion  of  the  Moselle  at  Cincin- 
nati April  25,  1838,  was  one  of  the  most  terrible  of 
these  calamities.  The  Moselle  was  a  fast  boat,  hold- 
ing the  record  between  St.  Louis  and  Cincinnati  (750 
miles)  at  sixty-four  hours.  On  the  day  mentioned  she 
drew  out  of  her  pier  at  Cincinnati  with  a  passenger 
list  numbering  over  250  men,  women,  and  children. 
A  landing  in  the  suburbs  of  Cincinnati  was  made  to 
take  on  a  party  of  German  emigrants.  The  boilers 
were  being  forced  to  their  limit  in  anticipation  of 
equalling  or  surpassing  all  previous  records,  and  as 
the  boat  was  leaving  shore  the  four  boilers  exploded 
simultaneously.  The  entire  end  of  the  boat  in  front 
of  the  wheels  was  blown  to  kindling  wood;  the  force 
of  the  explosion  was  accounted  at  the  time  the 
most  terrific  known  in  the  annals  of  steam — and  the 
"new  record"  was  one  of  deaths  and  not  of  speed.  It 
is  said  that  passengers  were  blown  upon  both  the  Ohio 
and  the  Kentucky  shores,  and  the  exaggeration  ma}^ 
not  be  as  great  as  it  seems.     Eighty-one  passengers 


When  the  Steamboat  was  King  345 

were  known  to  have  been  killed  and  fifty-five  were 
missing;  many  of  the  latter  never  reappeared.  At  a 
public  meeting  in  the  city  "the  great  and  increasing 
carelessness  in  the  navigation  of  steam  vessels"  was 
vehemently  denounced. 

The  burning  of  the  Louisville-New  Orleans  packet 
Ben  Sherrod  in  1837  on  her  way  northward  to 
Louisville  was  one  of  the  most  terrible  dramas  in  the 
annals  of  western  steamboat  history.  Mr.  Lloyd 
thus  recounts  the  event: 

It  was  one  o'clock  at  night,  and  the  boat  was  about  fourteen 
miles  above  Fort  Adams,  ploughing  her  way  up  the  Mississippi 
with  great  velocity.  The  "Prairie"  was  just  ahead  of  her,  in 
sight,  and  the  crew  of  the  "Ben  Sherrod"  were  determined, 
if  possible,  to  go  by  her.  The  firemen  were  shoving  in  the  pine 
knots,  and  sprinkling  rosin  over  the  coal,  and  doing  their  best 
to  raise  more  steam.  They  had  a  barrel  of  whiskey  before 
them,  from  which  they  drank  often  and  freely  until  they  were 
beastly  drunk.  The  boilers  became  so  hot  that  they  set  fire  to 
sixty  cords  of  wood  on  board,  and  the  "Ben  Sherrod"  was  soon 
completely  enveloped  in  flames.  The  passengers,  three  hundred 
in  number,  were  sound  asleep,  not  thinking  of  the  awful  doom 
that  awaited  them.  When  the  deck  hands  discovered  the  fire, 
they  basely  left  their  posts  and  ran  for  the  yawl,  without  giving 
the  alarm  to  the  passengers.  Capt.  Castleman  attempted  for 
a  time  to  allay  the  excitement  and  confusion,  by  telling  them 
the  fire  was  extinguished.  Twice  he  forbade  the  lowering  of 
the  yawl,  which  was  attempted.  The  shrieks  of  nearly  three 
hundred  and  fifty  persons  now  on  board,  rose  wild  and  dread- 
ful, which  might  have  been  heard  at  a  distance  of  several  miles. 
The  cry  was,  "To  the  shore!  to  the  shore!"  and  the  boat 
made  for  the  starboard  shore,  but  did  not  gain  it,  as  the  wheel 
ropes  soon  burnt.  The  steam  was  not  shut  off,  and  the  boat 
kept  on  up  the  river.  The  scene  of  horror  now  beggared  all 
description.  The  yawl,  which  had  been  filled  with  the  crew, 
had  sunk,  drowning  nearly  all  who  were  in  it;  and  the  passengers 


346  The  Ohio  River 

had  no  other  alternative  than  to  jump  overboard,  without  even 
taking  time  to  dress.  There  were  ten  ladies  who  all  went 
overboard  without  uttering  a  single  scream;  some  drowned 
instantly,  and  others  clung  to  planks;  two  of  the  number  were 
all  that  were  saved.  Several  passengers  were  burnt  alive. 
One  man  by  the  name  of  Ray,  from  Louisville,  Kentucky,  jumped 
overboard,  and  hung  to  a  rope  at  the  bow  of  the  boat,  until 
rescued  by  the  yawl  of  the  steamer  "Columbus,"  which  arrived 
at  the  scene  half  an  hour  after  the  boat  took  fire.  Mr  .Ray's 
face  and  arms  were  much  burnt  while  clinging  to  the  boat. 
He  lost  twenty  thousand  dollars  in  specie.  The  steamboat 
"Alton"  arrived  half  an  hour  after  the  "Columbus,"  but  from 
the  carelessness  or  indiscretion  of  those  on  her,  was  the  means 
of  drowning  many  persons  who  were  floating  in  the  water. 
She  came  down  under  full  headway  among  the  exhausted 
sufferers,  who  were  too  weak  to  make  any  further  exertion, 
and  by  the  commotion  occasioned  by  her  wheels  drowned  a 
large  number.  A  gentleman  by  the  name  of  Hamilton,  from 
Limestone  county,  Alabama,  was  floating  on  a  barrel,  and 
sustaining  also  a  lady,  when  the  "Alton"  came  up,  washing 
them  both  under.  The  lady  was  drowned,  but  Mr.  Hamilton 
came  up  and  floated  down  the  river  fifteen  miles,  when  he  was 
rescued  by  the  steamer  "Statesman."  Mr.  McDowell  sustained 
himself  some  time  against  the  current,  so  that  he  floated  only 
two  miles  down  the  river,  and  then  swam  ashore.  His  wife, 
who  was  floating  on  a  plank,  was  drowned  by  the  steamer 
"Alton."  Mr.  Rundell  floated  down  the  river  ten  miles,  and 
was  taken  up  by  a  fiat-boat  at  the  mouth  of  Buffalo  creek; 
he  saved  his  money  in  his  pantaloons'  pocket.  Mr.  McDowell 
lost  his  wife,  son,  and  a  lady  named  Miss  Frances  Few,  who  was 
under  his  protection ;  also  a  negro  servant.  Of  those  who 
escaped,  we  have  seen  and  conversed  with  James  P.  Wilkinson, 
Esq.,  Mr.  Stanfield,  of  Richmond,  Virginia,  and  Daniel  Mar- 
shall, Esq.,  of  Moscow,  Indiana.  The  scene,  as  described  by 
them,  was  truly  heart-rending;  while  some  were  confined  to 
their  berths,  and  consumed  by  the  flames,  others  plunged  into 
the  river  to  find  watery  graves.  One  lady,  who  attached  her- 
self to  Mr.  Marshall,  and  had  clung  to  him  while  they  floated 


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V 


When  the  Steamboat  was  King  347 

four  or  five  miles,  was  at  length  drowned  by  the  waves  of  the 
"Alton,"  after  imploring  the  boat's  crew  for  assistance  and 
mercy.  Mr.  Marshall  was  supported  by  a  flour  barrel.  Only 
two  ladies  out  of  ten  who  were  on  board  were  saved;  one  of 
these  was  Mrs.  Castleman,  the  Captain's  wife;  the  other  was 
Mrs.  Smith,  of  New  Orleans. 

It  was  said  by  some  of  the  passengers,  that  the  captain  of 
the  "Alton"  did  not  hear  the  cries  of  those  who  implored  him 
for  assistance  as  he  passed,  it  being  midnight;  but  there  can  be 
no  excuse  for  the  monster  who  commanded  the  "Prairie,"  for 
leaving  a  boat  in  flames  without  turning  around  and  affording 
the  sufferers  relief.  He  reported  her  on  fire  at  Natchez  and 
Vicksburg. 

A  man  in  a  canoe  near  the  scene  of  the  disaster  refused  to 
save  any  who  were  floating  in  the  water,  unless  they  promised 
to  pay  him  handsomely  for  his  services.  So  rapid  were  the 
flames  that  not  even  the  register  of  the  boat  was  saved;  hence 
it  was  impossible  to  get  a  full  list  of  the  lost.  One  of  the  officers 
of  the  boat  informed  us,  that  out  of  seventy-eight  deck  pass&ngers 
not  more  than  six  were  saved.  This  was  one  of  the  most  serious 
calamities  that  ever  occurred  on  the  Mississippi  river,  there 
being  at  least  one  hundred  and  seventy  families  deprived  by 
it  of  some  dear  and  beloved  member,  and  over  two  hundred 
souls  being  hurried  by  it  out  of  time  into  eternity,  with  scarce 
a  moment's  warning.  During  the  burning  of  the  "Ben  Sherrod " 
eight  different  explosions  occurred;  first,  barrels  of  whiskey, 
brandy,  &c.;  then  the  boilers  blew  up  with  a  fearful  explosion, 
and  lastly,  forty  barrels  of  gunpowder  exploded,  which  made 
a  noise  that  was  heard  many  miles  distant,  scattering  fragments 
of  the  wreck  in  all  directions,  and  producing  the  grandest 
sight  ever  seen.  Immediately  after,  the  wreck  sunk  out  of 
sight  just  above  Fort  Adams.  A  large  quantity  of  specie 
which  was  on  its  way  to  the  Tennessee  Banks,  was  lost.  One 
gentleman  placed  his  pocket-book,  containing  thirty-eight 
thousand  dollars,  under  his  pillow,  and  though  he  managed  to 
escape,  he  lost  all  his  money.  One  scene  was  distressing  in 
the  extreme;  a  young  and  beautiful  lady,  whose  name  was 
Mary  Ann  Walker,  on  hearing  the  cry  of  fire,  rushed  out  of 


348  The  Ohio  River 

the  ladies'  cabin  in  her  loose  night-clothes  in  search  of  her 
husband,  at  the  same  time  holding  her  infant  to  her  bosom, 
in  her  endeavors  to  get  forward  her  dress  caught  fire,  and  was 
torn  from  her  back  to  save  her  life.  After  witnessing  her 
husband  fall  into  the  flames  in  the  forward  part  of  the  boat, 
and  unable  to  reach  him,  she  leaped  with  her  child  into  the 
water,  seized  a  plank,  and  was  carried  by  the  current  within 
forty  yards  of  the  "Columbus,"  but  just  as  she  seized  a 
rope  thrown  to  her,  both  mother  and  child  sank  to  rise  no  more. 
One  young  man,  who  had  reached  the  hurricane  deck  in  safety, 
hearing  the  cries  of  his  sister,  rushed  back  to  the  cabin,  clasped 
her  in  his  arms,  and  both  were  burnt  to  death.  One  of  the 
clerks,  one  of  the  pilots,  and  the  mate  were  burnt  to  death. 
All  the  chambermaids  and  women  employed  in  the  boat  perished ; 
only  two  negroes  escaped  out  of  thirty-five  that  were  in  the 
boat. , 

A  gentleman,  Mr.  Cook,  floated  down  the  river  several 
miles  before  he  was  picked  up.  He  hailed  the  wretched  and 
despicable  character  who  had  put  off  in  a  yawl  from  the  shore, 
and  begged  his  assistance.  The  scoundrel,  who  was  intent 
in  picking  up  baggage,  boxes,  &c.,  asked  with  the  utmost  sang 
froid,  "How  much  will  you  give  me.'*"  To  the  entreaties  of 
others  for  help,  he  replied,  "Oh,  you  are  very  well  off  there; 
keep  cool,  and  you  '11  come  out  comfortable." 

Poor  Davis,  the  pilot  at  the  wheel,  was  consumed;  he  was 
one  in  a  thousand,  preferring  to  die  rather  than  leave  his  post 
in  the  hour  of  danger.  Just  before  he  left  New  Orleans,  he  was 
conversing  with  another  pilot  about  the  burning  of  the  "St. 
Martinsville";  said  he,  "if  ever  I  should  be  on  a  boat  that  takes 
fire,  and  don't  save  the  passengers,  it  will  be  because  the  tiller 
ropes  burn,  or  I  perish  in  the  flames."  And  just  such  me  i  as 
Davis  are  to  be  found  among  the  western  boatmen;  many 
have  stood  by  their  posts  in  the  hour  of  danger,  and  perished 
rather  than  flinch  from  their  duty. 

It  were  well-nigh  impossible,  however,  to  sketch 
in  a  single  chapter  even  imperfectly  the  lights  and 
shades  of  the  old  steamboat  days.     It  is  not  an  ex- 


When  the  Steamboat  was  King  349 

aggeration  to  say  that  they  are  altogether  passed — 
the  days  of  "white  intermingled  with  purple"  in  the 
old-time  Middle  West;  the  more  distant  days,  when, 
for  instance,  the  old  horns  used  on  the  flatboats  were 
transferred  to  the  steamboat.  It  has  been  said  that 
the  first  whistle  was  blown  by  steam  on  the  Allequippe 
in  1828,  while  the  same  honor  is  claimed  for  the 
old  side-wheeler  Lexington.  One  of  the  early  actual 
accounts  of  whistle-blowing  is  left  of  Captain  J.  S.  Nale, 
part  owner  and  engineer  of  the  Revenue. 

You  see  they  were  making  a  trip  with  government  supplies 
to  Fort  Touson,  on  the  Red  River,  in  1844,  They  had  the 
whistle  then,  for  while  they  were  making  the  trip  Polk  was 
inaugurated  President,  and  old  Capt.  Neal — he  was  n't  old  then — 
was  the  only  Democrat  on  the  boat,  and  I  tell  you  he  made  the 
Injuns  jump  when  he  set  that  old  whistle  to  tooting.  In  those 
days  the  whistle  was  placed  a-top  of  the  boilers  and  the  engineer 
could  amuse  himself  to  his  heart's  content  if  he  wanted  to. 
Old  Capt.  Neal  was  a  steamboatman  born.  He  was  the  first 
man  on  the  river  to  use  the  life  preserver  and  sent  Capt.  W.  H. 
Fulton  all  the  way  to  Philadelphia  to  get  a  supply  of  them  for 
the  "Revenue." 

Many  pages  might  be  given  to  the  history  of  the 
old  steamboat  days,  just  before  the  advent  of  the  rail- 
road in  the  West.  A  few  descriptions  of  the  steamer 
in  its  heyday  must  be  recorded. 

It  is  a  curious  circumstance  [we  read  in  Cist's  Miscellanies] 
that  the  progress  of  steamboat  building  for  ocean  navigation 
has  just  brought  us,  as  the  point  of  perfection,  to  the  model 
and  proportions  of  the  first  vessel  of  which  we  have  any  record. 
I  allude  to  the  ark  built  by  Noah.  The  dimensions  of  the 
"Great  Britain"  are — length  three  hundred  and  twenty-two 
feet,  breadth  of  beam  fifty  feet,  depth  thirty-one  and  a  half 
feet.  The  dimensions  of  the  ark  were — length  three  hundred 
cubits,   breadth   fifty   cubits,   depth   thirty   cubits.     It  will  be 


350  The  Ohio  River 

seen,  therefore,  that  the  ark  was  nearly  twice  the  size  m  depth, 
breadth,  and  length  of  the  steamboat,  the  cubit  being  twenty- 
two  inches.     Both  had  upper,  lower,  and  middle  stories. 

The  steamer  Yorktown  which  ran  between  Cin- 
cinnati and  New  Orleans,  built  in  1844,  was  one  of 
the  palatial  boats  of  its  day. 

Her  measurements  and  equipments  are  as  follows.  Length 
182  feet,  breadth  of  beam  31  feet,  water  wheels  28  feet  in  diam- 
eter, length  of  buckets  ten  feet  three  inches  and  twenty-eight 
inches  wide.  Hold  eight  feet.  She  has  four  boilers,  thirty 
feet  long,  and  forty-two  inches  in  diameter,  double  engines,  and 
two  twenty-four-inch  cylinders,  with  nine  feet  stroke;  she 
draws  four  feet  light,  and  hardly  more  than  eight  feet  with  550 
tons  freight,  her  full  cargo.  She  has  forty  state  rooms  and  of 
course  eighty  berths,  all  appropriated  to  cabin-passengers;  the 
boat  officers  being  provided  with  state  rooms  in  the  pilot  house. 
This  arrangement  affords  the  officers  opportunity  of  attending 
to  their  appropriate  duties  without  the  annoyance  and  inter- 
ference of  others  and  dispensing  with  that  regular  nuisance  the 
Social  Hall  protects  the  gentlemen  and  especially  the  ladies 
on  board,  from  the  effluvia  of  Cigars,  which,  in  ordinary  cases 
taints  the  whole  range  of  the  cabins. 

The  state  rooms  are  spacious,  capable  of  being  well  venti- 
lated, with  commodious  stools  which  afford  seats  independent 
of  those  for  the  tables.  Each  berth  has  its  upper  and  lower 
mattress. — To  the  ladies'  cabin  there  are  permanent  sky-lights, 
and  a  lower  range  of  movable  lights  by  which  the  supply  of 
warm  or  fresh  air  in  the  ladies'  rooms  is  regulated  at  pleasure. 
The  cabin  seats  are  armed  chairs,  which  being  two  feet  in  breadth 
afford  ample  space  at  the  table,  and  protect  the  feeble  and 
infirm  from  being  crowded  or  elbowed  at  meals.  The  chains 
and  other  iron  fastening  work  usually  projecting  in  every  direction 
to  the  annoyance  of  passengers  at  all  times — at  night  especially — 
are  here  disposed  of  out  of  the  way  and  generally  out  of  sight. 
Such  are  the  arrangements  for  convenience  and  comfort  on 
board  the  "Yorktown,"  that  there  are  few  persons  who  com- 
mand at  home  the  agremeiis  which  are  provided  here,  and  the 


The  Successors  of  the  Swift  Canoe. 


When  the  Steamboat  was  King  35 1 

only  thing  I  object  to  in  the  boat  is  the  danger  of  its  rendering 
her  passengers  unsatisfied  with  the  measure  of  their  enjoyments 
at  home,  by  the  force  of  contrast.  Sound  judgment  and  taste 
have  dictated  all  the  details.  Everything  about  her  is  of  the 
best  quality  and  highest  finish,  and  strength,  convenience  and 
elegance  are  everywhere  apparent.  The  floors  are  carpeted  ii. 
exquisite  taste.  Even  the  folding  doors  which  admit  to  the 
ladies'  cabin,  with  their  rich  panel  work  can  hardly  find  a 
rival  in  the  mansions  of  the  aristocracy  in  our  Atlantic  cities. 

The  "Yorktown"  is  supplied  with  two  of  Evans'  Safety 
Guards,  one  to  each  outside  boiler,  and  her  tiller  and  bell  ropes 
are  all  of  wire. — An  hundred  feet  of  hose  is  ready  at  a  moment's 
notice  to  convey  a  torrent  of  water  to  the  most  extreme  part 
of  the  boat.  The  hurricane  roof  is  covered  with  sheet  iron, 
and  a  half  a  dozen  water  casks,  constantly  filled,  are  here  and 
there,  for  immediate  use  in  case  of  fire.  The  seventy-two 
table  chairs  are  connected  with  life  preservers  beneath  the 
seats,  of  such  buoyancy  that  each  chair  has  been  tested  to  float 
two  persons.  All  the  doors  and  window  shutters — nearly  five 
hundred  in  number — -are  on  lifting  hinges  and  can  be  detached 
at  a  moment's  notice.  Each  of  these  can  buoy  up  a  passenger 
in  case  of  necessity  until  assistance  could  arrive. 

Her  Engine  is  equal  in  all  respects  to  the  general  superiority 
of  this  boat  over  her  rivals  in  this  trade.  I  cannot  go  into 
details  on  this  and  other  points  without  extending  this  article 
beyond  reasonable  bounds,  but  must  not,  however,  omit  to 
notice  as  of  great  importance  that  her  shafts  and  cranks  are  of 
wrought  iron.  This  is  the  first  introduction  of  wrought  iron  for 
such  purposes  on  steamboats.  Steamboat  shafts  should  never 
have  been  made  of  anything  else. 

I  hazard  nothing  in  the  assertion  that  there  has  never  yet 
floated  a  boat  equal  in  all  respects  to  the  "Yorktown"  upon  the 
Ohio  or  Mississippi,  and  that  the  whole  building,  finishing. and 
furnishing  interest  at  Pittsburg,  Wheeling,  Louisville  or  St. 
Louis  may  be  defied  to  exhibit  her  match.  It  will  be  time 
enough  for  her  to  be  surpassed  here  when  she  can  be  rivalled 
elsewhere.  If  this  statement  appears  extrav^ant  to  any  man 
of  intelligence,  let  him  visit  the  boat,  and  if  he  does  not  find  my 


352  The  Ohio  River 

details  correct,  and  fifty  things  besides  found  equally  remark- 
able and  interesting  which  I  have  not  space  to  describe,  I  will 
again  defer  the  conclusion  to  which  I  have  come  as  to  her 
superiority  in  everything,  almost,  to  any  boat  afloat  or  in  port. 
The  "Yorktown"  has  not  cost  her  owners,  Kellogg  &  Kennett 
and  T.  J.  Halderman,  less  than  33,000  dollars.  She  will  be 
commanded  by  the  last  named  gentleman,  with  Mr.  George 
Gassaway,  clerk. 

Another  boat,  the  Star-Spangled  Banner,  was  built 
in  1844,  and  had  the  following  measiirements : 

Length,  183  feet.  Breadth  of  beam,  thirty-one  feet.  Water 
wheels,  twenty-seven  feet  in  diameter;  length  of  buckets,  ten 
feet,  and  twenty -eight  inches  wide.  Hold,  seven  feet  nine  inches. 
She  has  four  boilers  twenty-eight  feet  in  length,  forty-two  inches 
diameter,  double  engines,  and  two  twenty-four-inch  cylinders, 
with  nine  feet  stroke.  She  draws  four  feet  water  light,  and 
hardly  more  than  eight  feet  with  five  hundred  tons,  her  full 
cargo.  She  has  thirty-six  state  rooms,  and  of  course  seventy-two 
berths,  all  appropriated  to  cabin  passengers,  the  boat  officers 
being  provided  with  state  rooms  in  the  pilot  house.  This  arrang- 
ment  affords  the  officers  an  opportunity  to  attend  to  their 
appropriate  duties  without  the  annoyance  and  interference  of 
others,  and  dispensing  with  the  nuisance  of  a  Social  Hall,  pro- 
tects the  gentlemen,  and  especially  the  ladies  on  board,  from  the 
effluvia  of  cigars,  which  ordinarily  taints  the  whole  range  of  the 
cabins.  As  respects  the  berths,  I  notice  as  an  improvement, 
that  the  lower  berth  projects  over  the  line  of  the  upper  one,  in 
this  respect  affording  facilities  for  reaching  the  higher  range 
without  the  usual  inconvenience.  The  cabin  seats  are  armed 
chairs,  two  feet  in  breadth,  which  supply  a  degree  of  comfort 
and  protection  to  the  aged  or  the  invalid  in  assigning  them 
space  at  the  dinner  table,  which  cannot  be  encroached  on,  and 
enabling  them  to  take  their  meals  as  pleasantly  as  at  home. 

The  "Star  Spangled  Banner,  "  is  in  short  built  for  convenience, 
comfort  and  speed,  and  I  doubt  not  will  prove  a  popular  boat 
in  the  New  Orleans  trade  for  which  she  is  designed.  A  speedy 
return  with  full  freight  and  passengers  to  our  public  landing 


When  the  Steamboat  was  King  353 

will  I  trust,  justify  all  I  expect,  from  the  business  capacities  of 
the  boat. 

Her  engines  built  by  J.  Goodloe,  judging  by  her  trial  trip 
on  last  Thursday,  work  with  unsurpassed  ease  and  efficiency,  and 
are  highly  creditable  to  the  shop  where  made. 

The  "Star  Spangled  Banner"  is  owned  by  Richard  Phillips 
&  Elmore  Bateman,  who  are  also  Captain  and  clerk  to  the  boat. 

In  February,  1846,  the  iron  steamboat  Hunter, 
driven  by  submerged  horizontal  propellers,  left  Cincin- 
nati and  ran  to  the  mouth  of  the  Great  Miami,  twenty- 
two  miles,  in  one  hour  and  twenty  minutes.  "This  is  a 
rate  of  speed,"  wrote  a  steamboat  chronicler,  "un- 
precedented for  any  boat  like  the  Hunter — ^but  one 
hundred  feet  in  length — and  seems  to  indicate  that 
the  propellers  have  not  had  fair  play  at  the  East, 
where  they  have  been  considered  a  failure. 

It  required  great  nerve  and  hardihood  to  pilot 
these  magnificent  steamers  on  a  river  which  was  so 
full  of  obstructions  and  which  had  received  so  little 
improvement  as  the  Ohio,  and  especially  as  the  boats 
were  frequently  packed  with  humanity.  It  was  a 
long,  hard  journey  to  the  position  of  pilot,  and  for 
success  a  man  was  as  dependent  on  his  own  home-spun 
sagacity  as  on  any  definite  knowledge;  it  would  seem 
as  though  many  an  accident  had  been  avoided  through 
the  possession  of  a  sort  of  miraculous  intuition. 

It  was  the  pride  of  every  steamboat  captain  to 
have  his  boat  equipped  with  a  large  and  sweet  sounding 
bell;  as  a  result  bell  foundries  in  the  Ohio  Valley  be- 
came one  of  the  important  industries.  In  1840  there 
were  eight  bell  foundries  in  Cincinnati  which  increased 
to  twelve  in  the  next  five  years,  turning  out  bells  to 

the    aggregate    value    of    $135,000.     The    "Buckeye 
23 


354  The  Ohio  River 

Brass  and  Bell  Foundry"  became  very  widely  known; 
the  bells  made  in  1845  ^^^  "the  largest  steamboats 
weighed  as  follows:  Felix  Grundy,  500  lbs.;  Rich- 
mond, 500  lbs. ;  Convoy,  500,  lbs. ;  Queen  City,  500  lbs. ; 
Magnolia,  625  lbs.;  Sea,  500  lbs.;  Belle  Creole,  500 
lbs.;  Princess,  500  lbs.;  Bulletin,  720  lbs.;  James 
Dick,  500  lbs. ;  Andrew  Jackson^  500  lbs. ;  Geo.  Wash- 
ington, 500  lbs. ;  Reindeer,  500  lbs.;  Hercules,  500  lbs; 
Huntsville,  500  lbs. ;  Pride  of  the  West,  700  lbs. ; 
Albatross,  500  lbs.;  Old  Hickory,  500  lbs.;  American 
Eagle,  500  lbs. 

A  writer  in  the  Cincinnati  Commercial  in  1882 
gave  some  interesting  sentences  concerning  the  per- 
sonal element  of  the  old  steamboat  days,  especially 
the  deck  hands.  "  Deckeneering "  in  the  olden  time, 
from  181 1  to  about  1830,  was  the  work  of  a  class  of 
men  entirely  different  from  those  who  now  occupy 
that  sphere. 

They  were  native  Americans,  whose  manhood  exacted  a  manly 
treatment,  and  whose  intelligence  enabled  them  to  learn  the 
channel,  to  gain  promotion  to  the  pilot-house,  to  become  masters 
and  owners.  I  could  call  to-day  the  names  of  many  living 
pilots,  captains  and  owners,  yes,  the  names  of  some  whose 
wealth  is  reckoned  in  hundreds  of  thousands  who  began 
life  as  common  deck  hands  on  the  Ohio  River. 

Subsequently  the  Americans  appear  to  have  wholly  aban- 
doned this  calling,  and  for  a  number  of  years  their  places  were 
filled  mostly  by  Germans.  Later,  between  1835  and  1840  the 
Irish  came  upon  the  scene,  appearing  first  at  New  Orleans, 
where  they  had  immigrated  from  various  Irish  ports,  and  quickly 
driving  off  the  Germans  until  the  war  monopolized  nearly  all 
the  deck  labor  upon  Western  steamboats. 

Although  in  ante-bellum  days  the  slaves  were  sometimes 
rented  out  to  Southern  boats,  it  was  not  until  the  breaking  out 
of  the  rebellion  that  negroes  became  generally  engaged  in  this 


The  Bell  of  the  City  of  Cincinnati 


f  l> 


v 


♦^■'o. , 


When  the  Steamboat  was  King  355 

pursuit;  but  ever  since  the  war  their  numbers  have  steadily- 
increased,  until  to-day,  the  whites  have  been  almost  wholly 
supplanted. 

With  these  successive  changes  in  the  nationality  of  the 
deck  crews  there  have  been  changes  in  their  individual  condition, 
from  good  to  bad,  and  from  bad  to  worse,  until  to-day  it  is  one 
to  excite  remonstrance. 

The  steamboat  days  cannot  be  passed  without  a 
story  or  two  that  will  bring  up  the  steamboat  of  the 
old  days  as  the  haven  of  the  card  sharper  and  gambler. 
The  two  conditions  desired  by  this  enterprising  class 
of  citizens  were  answered  on  the  steamboat  of  anti- 
railroad  days;  here  were  men  with  both  money  and 
leisure.  The  result  was  that  gambling  became  the  one 
chief  form  of  relaxation,  of  amusement,  on  the  old 
river  boats,  and  thousands  of  dollars,  carried  by  rich 
planters  of  the  South  and  merchants  of  the  North  was 
the  plunder  and  prey  of  the  old  steamboat  gambler. 
An  old  gambler  leaves  the  following  story  as  a  sample 
of  one  of  his  many  escapades  through  a  forty-five 
year  career  as  a  sporting  man. 

Coming  up  on  the  "  Sultana"  one  night  there  were  about 
twenty-five  of  the  toughest  set  of  men  as  cabin  passengers  I  be- 
lieve I  ever  met.  They  were  on  their  way  to  Napoleon,  Ark., 
which  at  that  time  was  a  great  town  and  known  as  the  jumping- 
off  place.  In  those  days  these  Napoleon  fellows  were  looked  upon 
as  cut-throats  and  robbers,  and  thought  nothing  of  murdering 
a  fellow  simply  to  make  them  appear  big  men  with  their  gang. 
I  had  for  a  partner  a  man  named  Canada  Bill,  as  game  a  party 
as  ever  strode  the  deck  of  a  steamboat,  and  one  of  the  shrewdest 
gamblers  I  ever  encountered. 

As  soon  as  supper  was  over  this  gang  of  Arkansas  toughs 
got  in  the  cabin  and  of  course  wanted  to  play  cards.  Bill  had 
opened  up  business  in  the  main  hall,  and  a  great  crowd  had 
gathered  about  him.     I  saw  that  most  of  these  devils  had  been 


35^  The  Ohio  River 

drinking,  and  gave  Bill  the  nod,  which  he  of  course  understood. 
He  only  played  a  short  while  and  left  the  game,  pretending  to 
be  broke.  Then  we  fixed  it  up  that  I  should  do  the  playing 
and  he  would  watch  out  for  any  trouble.  Well,  the  result  was 
I  got  about  everything  the  twenty-five  men  had,  including 
their  watches,  and  beat  some  seven  or  eight  other  passengers. 
The  men  all  took  it  apparently  good-natured  at  the  time,  but 
as  the  night  wore  on  and  they  kept  drinking  from  their  private 
flasks  I  made  a  sneak  to  my  room  and  changed  my  clothes. 
By  the  back  stairs  I  slipped  into  the  kitchen  and  sent  a  man 
after  my  partner.  I  had  blackened  my  face,  and  looked  like 
one  of  the  negro  rousters.  I  only  had  time  to  warn  him,  when 
a  terrible  rumpus  up-stairs  told  me  the  jig  was  up,  and  with 
their  whiskey  to  aid  them  they  were  searching  for  me,  and  if 
they  caught  me  it  would  be  good  day  to  me.  I  paid  the  cooks 
to  keep  mum,  and  Bill  made  himself  scarce.  They  had  their 
guns  out,  and  were  kicking  in  the  state-room  doors  hunting 
for  me.  Some  of  them  came  down  on  deck,  and  were  walking 
back  and  forth  by  me,  cursing  and  threatening  vengeance.  I 
heard  one  of  them  ask  a  roustabout  if  he  had  noticed  a  well- 
dressed  man  down  on  deck  lately.  He  of  course  had  not,  as 
Bill  had  gone  back  up  the  kitchen  stairs,  and  with  these  devils 
was  raising  Cain,  looking  for  me,  and  my  disguise  had  not  been 
discovered  under  the  darkness  of  the  night. 

The  boat  was  plowing  her  way  along  up  the  coast.  The 
stevedores  were  shouting  to  the  darkies,  hurrying  them  along 
with  the  freight  for  a  landing  soon  to  be  reached.  The  boat's 
whistle  blew,  and  soon  she  was  heading  in  for  shore.  A  crowd 
of  these  fellows  were  waiting  for  me,  as  they  suspected  I  would 
try  and  get  off.  They  were  looking,  mind  you,  for  a  well- 
dressed  man.  As  soon  as  the  boat  landed  about  ten  of  them, 
guns  in  hand,  ran  out  over  the  stage  to  shore  and  closely  scanned 
the  face  of  every  person  that  came  off.  There  was  a  stack  of 
plows  to  be  discharged  from  the  boat's  cargo,  and  noting  the 
fact,  I  shouldered  one  and  with  it  followed  the  long  line  of 
"coons"  amid  the  curses  of  the  mates,  and  fairly  flew  past  these 
men  who  were  hunting  me.  I  kept  on  up  the  high  bank  and 
over  the  levee,  and  when  I  threw  my  plow  in  the  pile  with  the 


When  the  Steamboat  was  King  357 

others,  made  oflE  for  the  cotton  fields  and  laid  flat  on  my  back 
until  the  boat  got  again  under  way,  and  the  burning  pine  in 
the  torches  on  deck  had  been  extinguished. 

It  was  a  close  call,  I  can  assure  you.  Bill  met  me  at  Vicks- 
burg  the  next  day  and  brought  the  boodle,  which  we  divided. 
He  said  the  crowd  took  lights  and  searched  the  boat's  hold 
for  me  after  we  left  the  landing.  Bill  must  have  played  his  part 
well  as  he  told  me  afterward  that  they  never  suspected  him, 
.  The  river  was,  for  the  greater  portion  of  my  career, 
my  strongest  hold.  But  it 's  all  over  now.  Even  should  a  man 
strike  a  big  winning,  there  are  always  too  many  Smart  Alexs 
about  and  you  would  have  to  whack  up  with  so  many  that  there 
would  be  little  left  for  the  winner. 


Chapter  XV 

The  Workshop  of  the  World 

WITH  the  closing  of  the  nineteenth  century  the 
Ohio  River  has  passed  from  the  Steam- 
boat Age  to  the  Age  of  the  Steel  Barge. 
The  rapid  building  of  railways  and  the 
fast-growing  network  of  electric  roads  on  the  banks 
of  the  Ohio  make  it  certain  that,  as  a  route  of  pass- 
enger travel,  except  for  pleasure,  the  old  days  of 
princely  passenger  boats  will  never  return.  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  old  days  of  the  flatboat  and  barge 
are  fast  returning,  and  though  the  human  element 
which  was  so  picturesque  will  be  wanting,  there  is  a 
marvellous  future  history  in  the  commercial  develop- 
ment of  America  to  be  wrought  out  along  the  sweeping 
shores  of  the  River  of  Many  White  Caps. 

Though  comparatively  little  money  has  been  spent 
in  improving  the  Ohio,  something  has  been  done  and 
more  is  promised;  millions  have  been  spent  for  slack- 
water  navigation  on  the  principal  tributaries  of  the 
Ohio,  until  now  one  standing  on  the  point  of  land 
at  the  junction  of  the  Allegheny  and  Monongahela  at 
Pittsburg  and,  looking  north,  west,  and  south,  may,  in 
the  mind's  eye,  picture  a  scene  perhaps  never  to  be 
equalled  elsewhere  in  the  history  of  the  world.  One 
may  now  start  from  that  point  in  a  steamboat  of  more 

358 


a 
■^ 

> 

O 
c 


r, 


The  Workshop  of  the  World  359 

tonnage  than  any  in  which  Champlain  ever  crossed  the 
Atlantic  and  steam  four  thousand  four  hundred  and 
six  miles  and  not  go  out  of  the  Ohio  River  Basin;  and 
on  that  journey  pass  through  the  richest  portion  of 
the  American  continent,  supporting  nearly  sixteen 
million  happy  and  progressive  people.  When  slack- 
water  navigation  has  made  every  mile  of  all  those 
thousands  navigable,  in  every  month  of  the  year,  the 
Ohio  River  drainage  area  will  be  an  empire  as  great 
as  France,  as  fruitful  as  any  similar  area  on  the  face  of 
the  earth,  and  threaded  throughout  its  vast  extent 
by  a  waterway  controlled  by  the  national  government, 
affording  the  cheapest  method  of  forwarding  freight 
that  is  known  in  the  civilized  world. 

There  are  men  within  the  sound  of  my  voice  [said  Congressman 
Stanley  of  Kentucky,  when  addressing  the  Ohio  Valley  Improve- 
ment Association  at  Evansville,  Indiana]  who  can  remember 
the  time  when  Chicago  was  a  hunter's  camp  upon  an  untroubled 
stream  and  a  placid  lake.  .  .  .  And  yet  what  are  the  cities  of 
Chicago  and  St.  Louis?  They  are  but  the  caps  and  breakers 
upon  that  great  wave  of  progress  and  of  power  that  finds  its 
expression  in  those  massive  works.  Behind  the  city  of  Chicago 
and  behind  the  city  of  St.  Louis  are  millions  of  toiling  Americans 
who  made  those  cities  great,  simply  because  it  was  at  that  point 
in  Missouri  and  at  that  point  in  Illinois  where  the  products  of 
the  mines  and  of  the  fields  could  find  most  ready  exchange  for  the 
product  of  the  mill.  Around  you  on  every  side  are  fields  more 
fertile  than  those  that  feed  the  city  of  St.  Louis  or  the  city  of 
Chicago.  Within  your  hills  along  this  valley  is  wealth  unknown 
to  any  citizen  of  the  plain ;  and  citizenship  as  energetic,  as  willing, 
as  earnest,  and  as  patriotic.  And  I  tell  you  that  I  am  neither  a 
prophet  nor  the  son  of  a  prophet,  but  one  of  the  results  of  this 
movement  of  river  improvement  will  be  that  along  the  valley 
of  the  Ohio,  God's  Eden  restored,  will  spring  up  on  this  great 
canal  when  it  is  completed,  as  it  will  be  completed,  the  peer  of 
any  city  in  this  or  any  other  country  on  the  reeling  earth. 


360  The  Ohio  River 

The  realization  of  this  daring  dream  would  after 
all  be  scarcely  less  wonderful  than  the  actual  history 
of,  for  instance,  the  city  of  Pittsburg.     A  century  ago 
Pittsburg  was  a  collection  of  huts,  far  out  on  the  confines 
of  civilization.     To-day  our  centre  of  population,  pass- 
ing  near    Pittsburg    nearly    fifty    years   ago,    stands 
two  hundred  miles  west  of  it.     The  commercial  centre  of 
the  United  States  has  more  recently  come  over  the  Alle- 
ghenies  from  the  seaboard  and  lies  now  at  the  junction 
of  the  Monongahela  and  Allegheny,  if,  indeed,  it  has  not 
moved  farther  west.     The   "Monongahela   Country," 
to  use  the  pioneer  expression,  to-day  produces  more 
freight  than  any  similar  extent  of  territory  in  the  world. 
Within  the  past  decade  a  hundred  million  dollars  was 
spent  in  that  area  in  new  construction  and  extension 
in  railways  and  manufacturing  plants;  the  district  in 
1903  produced  fourteen  million  tons  of  coke;  it  handled 
in  its  markets  a  billion  feet  of  lumber,  representing  an 
invested  capital  of  twenty-five  million  dollars;  twenty- 
one  thousand  cars  of  fruit  and  produce  were  delivered 
there;  a  million  hides  were  tanned  there;  six  million 
pounds  of  copper  were  manufactured  there ;  and  a  half 
million  tons  of  wire  and  wire-product  made  it  the  wire 
centre  of  the  world.     It  produced  eighty-nine  per  cent, 
of  the  plate-glass  made  in  America,  fifty-nine  per  cent, 
of  the  steel,  thirty-six  per  cent,  of  the  pig  iron,  fifty  per 
cent,  of  the  cork,  sixty-five  per  cent,  of  the  table  glass- 
ware, and  twenty-five  per  cent,  of  the  brass  castings; 
it   claims   to  have    the  largest   steel,   tube,    tin,    and 
electrical    apparatus    plants    in    the    world.      When 
searching  for    a  wonder  to    place  beside   the  ancient 
seven  wonders  of  the  world  one  may,  in  wonder  and 
in  awe,  well  pause  before  the  marvellous  record  of 


The  Workshop  of  the  World  361 

this  outgrowth  of  the  few  score  cabins  Washington 
counted  there  in  1770. 

The  proposed  improvement  of  the  Ohio  suggests 
the  whole  history  of  the  government's  relationship  to 
that  river  since  1825  when  first  an  attempt  was  made 
to  improve  it.  Eight  years  previous  to  that  the 
Legislature  of  Ohio  took  up  this  important  matter, 
and  passed  a  resolution  calling  upon  the  neighboring 
commonwealths  to  co-operate;  in  18 19  General  Black- 
burn of  Virginia,  General  John  Adair  of  Kentucky, 
General  E.  W.  Tupper  of  Ohio,  and  Walter  Lowrie  of 
Pennsylvania  made  a  report  to  their  several  legislatures 
concerning  a  preliminary  examination  which  they 
conducted. 

The  matter  was  left,  however,  as  one  of  the  duties 
of  the  national  government,  and  in  1825  a  feeble 
beginning  seems  to  have  been  made  in  the  way  of 
clearing  out  some  of  the  snags  and  drift-piles.  Ten 
years  later  fifty  thousand  dollars  was  appropriated 
and  until  1 844  the  work  went  on ;  it  was  confined  almost 
wholly  to  removing  the  most  dangerous  obstructions. 
In  the  report  of  Captain  Sanders,  dated  November  4, 
1837,  we  find  that  a  steam  snagboat  began  ascending 
the  Ohio  from  Louisville  August  ist,  and  reached 
Letart's  Falls  by  September  30th;  it  had  "removed 
415  snags,  seven  branches  or  tree  tops,  two  sunken 
flatboats,  and  four  piles  of  drift.  .  .  .  The  monthly 
expenses  of  the  boat  are  about  two  thousand  dollars. 
The  most  of  these  snags  were  very  large,  many  of  them 
having  a  diameter  of  six  feet  at  the  butt,  and  being  over 
one  hundred  feet  long."  Another  boat  started  at 
Marietta  in  June  and  removed  317  snags,  85  logs, 
twenty    stumps,    ten    rocks,    793    branches,    and    six 


362 


The  Ohio  River 


sunken  boats  before  reaching  Letart's  Falls  on  Septem- 
ber 30th.  Up  to  that  date,  since  the  beginning  of 
work,  3303  obstructions  had  been  taken  from  the 
Ohio.  In  addition  to  this  work  a  series  of  rip-rap  stone 
dams  had  been  started  which  were  intended  to  throw 
the  entire  volume  of  water  into  one  channel  wherever 
built.  To  one  who  knows  the  river  it  is  needless  to 
say  that  these  wing  dams  and  some  snag  and  dredge 
work  constitute  practically  all  the  ' '  improvement ' ' 
known  on  the  river  to-day.  The  Davis  Island  Dam 
near  Pittsburg  and  the  Portland  Canal  around  the 
"Falls"  at  Louisville  are  almost  the  only  improve- 
ments of  a  genuine  kind. 

There  have  been  a  number  of  methods  of  improving 
the  Ohio  brought  forward  during  these  years,  and  the 
pamphlets  published  describing  them  would  fill  several 
volumes  as  large  as  this.  The  very  fact  that  the  river, 
for  a  certain  portion  of  the  year,  was  always  navigable 
has  seemed  to  militate  against  any  serious  action  by 
Congress  to  make  it  the  highway  that  it  ought  to 
become. 

Among  the  plans  mentioned  for  the  improvement 
of  the  river  three  have  occupied  most  attention;  one 
plan  is  known  as  the  reservoir  plan,  another  may  be 
called  the  canal  plan,  and  the  last  is  commonly  known 
as  the  slackwater  plan.  The  first  and  last  have  been 
under  serious  consideration  for  many  years.  The 
second,  or  "canal  plan, "  may  be  disposed  of  by  saying 
that  it  was  proposed  by  one  Herman  Haupt,  who  drew 
a  scheme  of  longitudinal  mounds  and  cross  dams  so 
arranged  as  to  make  a  canal  on  one  side  of  the  river 
two  hundred  or  more  feet  in  width,  thereby  reducing 
the  grade  between  Pittsburg  and  Louisville  to  nearly 


Shooting  an  Oil  Well. 


^ft. 


'>'^> 


<f . 


The  Workshop  of  the  World  363 

six  inches  per  mile.  In  this  connection  it  may  be 
stated  also  that  one  Alonzo  Livermore  secured  a  pat- 
ent for  a  combination  of  dams  and  chutes,  the  chutes 
taking  the  place  of  the  ordinary  lock. 

When  the  discussion  of  Ohio  River  improvement 
reached  its  height,  about  1850,  it  was  the  consensus 
of  opinion  that  all  schemes  had  been  eliminated  from 
consideration  save  two,  the  reservoir  and  slackwater 
plans.  The  former  was  a  proposition  to  build  a  number 
of  great  reservoirs  on  the  larger  tributaries  of  the  river ; 
these,  being  once  filled,  were  to  deliver  into  the  river 
enough  water  in  the  dry  season  to  render  navigation 
as  practicable  then  as  in  flood-tide;  an  even  flow  of 
water  was  to  be  maintained  permanently.  By  the 
slackwater  plan  the  lock  and  dam  system  was  to  be 
established.  The  reservoir  plan  was  advanced  by 
Charles  Ellet,  Jr.,  in  1849.  On  the  assumption  that 
there  was  an  annual  downfall  of  water  of  twelve  inches 
available  in  the  twenty-five  thousand  square  miles 
drained  by  the  Ohio  above  Wheeling,  and  that  the 
total  cubic  feet  would  therefore  be  nearh^  seven  hundred 
billion,  a  system  of  reservoirs,  it  was  argued,  might 
regulate  the  amount  of  flowing  water  and  give  about 
two  billion  cubic  feet  per  day ;  this,  Mr.  Ellet  estimated, 
would  give  eight  feet  in  the  channel  at  Wheeling.  Even 
in  the  dryest  years  enough  water  passed  Wheeling, 
if  it  could  be  equalized  throughout  the  season,  to 
afford  six  feet  of  water  all  the  time. 

The  opponents  of  the  scheme  called  attention  to  the 
fact  that  the  average  rainfall  in  different  years  varied 
greatly,  and  that  only  one  third  could,  in  reality,  be 
depended  upon  to  flow  away.  Instead  of  the  six 
reservoirs  described  by  Ellet,   they  urged  that  nine 


3^4  The  Ohio  River 

were  necessary,  each  containing  the  drainage  of  six 
hundred  square  miles,  or  fifty-four  hundred  in  the 
aggregate,  to  cost  about  eighteen  millions.  Then  the 
advocates  of  slackwater  navigation,  headed  by  W. 
Milnor  Roberts,  took  much  delight  in  attempting 
to  find  sites  for  the  nine  great  inland  lakes.  The  only 
stream  entering  the  Ohio  between  Pittsburg  and 
Wheeling  that  drained  enough  territory  was  the  Big 
Beaver;  a  dam  one  hundred  feet  high  on  this,  say 
between  Sharon  and  Clarksville,  would  back  the  water 
seventeen  miles,  flood  two  towns,  Clarksville  and 
Greenville,  and  seventeen  miles  of  the  Pennsylvania 
Railway.  If  built  on  the  Mahoning  branch  it  would 
have  to  be  located  near  Warren  where  it  would  sub- 
merge that  town  and  "twenty  miles  of  the  Pennsyl- 
vania and  Ohio  Canal,  several  valuable  coal  mines, 
mills  and  excellent  farm  land,  and  a  number  of  miles 
of  the  Cleveland  and  Mahoning  Railroad."  None  of 
the  tributaries  of  the  Monongahela  offered  a  feasible 
site  for  a  reservoir  and  that  river  itself  was  dammed 
and  locked  in  the  early  forties.  The  Allegheny  French 
Creek  could  not  be  dammed  at  any  point  and  collect 
"more  than  half  the  drainage  of  six  hundred  square 
miles."  A  reservoir  on  Connewango  Creek,  fifteen 
miles  above  Warren,  Pa.,  would  overflow  Chautauqua 
Lake  forty  feet;  a  dam  on  the  Conemaugh  River  at 
Chestnut  Ridge  of  the  required  height  would  ' '  submerge 
Johnstown,  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad,  the  Pennsyl- 
vania State  Canal,  the  State  Railroad  above  Johnstown 
and  the  Cambria  Iron  Works."  No  other  Allegheny 
tributary  could  give  a  drainage  of  six  hundred  square 
miles.  Above  Pittsburg  but  five  tributaries  drained 
this  amount  and  in  almost  every  case  important  towns 


The  Workshop  of  the  World  3^5 

must  be  sacrificed.  It  can  be  imagined  the  indignation 
that  would  be  felt  by  citizens  of  any  town  to  know 
that  its  site  was  to  be  given  up  to  a  reservoir  for  the 
benefit  of  the  navigation  of  a  river  twenty,  fifty,  or  a 
hundred  miles  distant! 

The  United  States  Government  has,  in  the  last 
decade,  appropriated  twenty  million  dollars  for  Ohio 
River  improvement  and  several  dams  with  locks  have 
been  erected;  the  largest  single  appropriation  was 
made  in  1905  of  four  and  one-half  millions,  being  14I 
per  cent,  of  the  total  appropriation  for  all  rivers  and 
harbors  of  the  country.  The  desire  of  the  cities  and 
industrial  interests  most  dependent  on  the  river  is  to 
secure  a  nine-foot  stage  of  water  by  means  of  locks 
and  dams  erected  throughout  the  valley  from  Cairo  to 
Pittsburg;  at  the  present  time  (June,  1906)  it  is  stated 
that  two  competent  government  engineers  are  taking 
up  the  entire  proposition  from  all  points  of  view  and 
will  submit  a  report  to  the  government  which  will 
probably  be  decisive. 

Andrew  Carnegie  has  predicted  that  the  Ohio  Valley  will 
become  the  "workshop  of  the  world"  [said  Hon.  R.  B.  Naylor, 
Secretary  of  the  Wheeling  Board  of  Trade,  in  a  recent  address 
before  the  Ohio  Valley  Historical  Society] ;  the  present  commerce 
of  the  river  is  immense,  and  what  it  will  become  when  the  great 
stream  is  locked  and  dammed  from  Pittsburg  to  Cairo,  no  man 
can  say.  Three  years  ago  the  tonnage  was  14,000,000 
equal  to  that  of  the  world's  famous  Suez  Canal,  and  it  has  in- 
creased since  then;  if  the  waten\^ay  is  navigable  all  the  year 
round,  it  would  probably  not  be  too  much  to  say  that  the  tonnage 
would  be  five  times  this  figure.  The  Ohio  River  system,  which  in- 
cludes that  great  stream  and  its  tributaries,  embraces  4500 
miles,  draining  six  States,  Pennsylvania,  West  Virginia,  Ohio, 
Indiana,  Kentucky,  and  Illinois,  with  a  population,  according  to 


366  The  Ohio  River 

the  latest  figures,  of  21,700,000,  or  at  least  ^  of  all  the  people  of 
the  United  States.  These  great  States  produce  most  of  the  coal 
in  this  Union,  make  most  of  the  iron,  produce  most  of  the  natural 
gas,  make  every  conceivable  manufactured  article,  and  the 
commerce  and  industry  of  the  United  States  have  their  highest 
exemphfication  there.  They  are  great  States  and  all  will  con- 
tribute a  large  measure  in  fulfilUng  the  prophecy  of  Andrew 
Carnegie. 

Every  element  of  successful  manufacturing  is  found  in  these 
sections,  and  the  improvement  of  the  Ohio  River  is  the  only 
thing  needed  to  make  the  valley's  commercial  supremacy  still 
greater.  Great  cities  dot  this  region  on  every  hand,  beginning 
with  Pittsburg  on  the  north,  with  a  tonnage  of  86,636,680 
greater  than  that  of  London,  New  York,  Antwerp,  and  Hamburg 
combined;  with  a  coal  output,  in  the  immediate  locality,  as 
great  as  that  of  France ;  with  an  iron  and  steel  production  larger 
than  that  of  Great  Britain ;  with  a  steel-rail  output  greater  than 
that  of  Germany;  with  a  pig-iron  production  nearly  as  large  as 
that  of  Russia  and  France — an  industrial  development  which  is 
the  wonder  of  our  times.  Coming  down  from  Pittsburg,  we  find 
the  valley  lined  with  little  Pittsburgs,  all  growing  and  thriving 
and  emulating  that  great  city.  We  have  East  Liverpool,  one 
of  the  greatest  pottery  centres  of  the  United  States.  We  have 
Steubenville,  with  great  mills  and  manufactories.  We  have 
New  Cumberland,  Follansbee,  and  Wellsburg,  making  sewer  pipe, 
tin  plate,  and  glassware,  and  many  other  products  which  are 
sent  all  over  the  country.  We  have  Wheeling,  the  metropolis 
of  West  Virginia,  and  a  Httle  Pittsburg  in  very  truth,  with  great 
iron  and  steel  plants,  with  extensive  potteries,  big  glass-houses 
and  a  large  number  of  manufacturing  plants  in  many  Hnes. 
The  Greater  Wheeling  embraces  a  population  of  125,  000,  and  is 
destined  to  play  a  great  role  in  the  fulfilment  of  the  Scotchman's 
prophecy.  Below  Wheehng  we  find  Sisterville,  New  Martinsville, 
beautiful  Marietta,  Parkersburg  and  Huntington,  and  many 
other  communities  which  are  rapidly  increasing  in  population 
and  development  along  all  lines.  We  have  Cincinnati,  the  Queen 
City  of  the  West,  a  prosperous  and  progressive  metropolis,  with 
industries  and  interests  as  large  and  diversified  as  any  city  of 


o 
o 

m 

•73 


ID 
(U 

•4-* 

C/3 


'>'A 


'r: 


•/ 


V 


The  Workshop  of  the  World  367 

similar  size  in  the  country.  We  have  Portsmouth,  Evansville, 
Louisville,  Paducah,  and  many  others  which  are  forging  ahead 
at  a  rapid  rate,  and  finally  Cairo  at  the  meeting  of  the  great 
Ohio  and  the  Father  of  Waters.  These  cities  are  located  directly 
on  the  great  river  from  which  the  valley  receives  its  name,  but 
hundreds  of  others,  on  the  tributaries  of  the  Ohio,  will  do  their 
share  toward  making  the  valley,  in  truth,  the  workshop  of 
the  world. 

When  the  United  States  completes  the  improvement 
of  the  navigation  of  the  Ohio  River  by  erecting  the 
dams  and  locks  which  will  afford  nine  feet  of  water 
the  year  roimd,  the  marvellous  record  of  Pittsburg  and 
Cincinnati  may,  as  hinted,  be  equalled  or  eclipsed  by 
towns  that  now  are  unknown.  For  the  conditions 
here  are  marvellously  answered;  the  supply  of  coal 
in  the  Ohio  Basin  is  almost  inestimable;  the  coal  in 
the  "Monongahela  Country"  will  last  for  centuries; 
it  is  estimated  that  the  coal  fields  on  the  Big  Sandy 
would  last  the  entire  United  States  three  centuries, 
while  the  vast  Wabash  coal  veins  are  quite  inexhausti- 
ble. And  here,  leading  to  these  great  fields  of  fuel, 
lies  this  water  communication  affording  a  cheaper 
freight  rate  than  ever  was  or  ever  can  be  offered  by 
any  other  known  method  of  transportation.  To-day, 
when  the  Ohio  is  filled  with  bars  and  wrecks  and  reefs, 
when  for  months,  sometimes,  the  smallest  packets 
cannot  ply  on  it,  the  steel  barge  is  playing  a  most 
important  part  commercially.  Through  the  days 
of  drought  they  are  slowly  accumulating  at  the  head 
of  the  Ohio  into  vast  fleets  ready  to  be  unloosened 
when  a  "rise"  comes.  It  is  difficult  for  one  unac- 
quainted with  the  subject  to  believe  what  tremendous 
loads  such  a  giant  towboat  as  the  Sprague  can  carry 


368 


The  Ohio  River 


up  and  down  the  Ohio.  There  is,  of  course,  a  limit 
beyond  which  Ohio  towboats  cannot  go ;  the  Sprague 
is  too  large,  and  has  been  in  trouble  since  leaving  the 
stocks.  She  can  carry  one  hundred  empty  barges 
down-stream  and  as  many  as  seventy  loaded  barges 
up-stream.  The  tremendous  dimensions  of  these 
cargoes  can  be  appreciated  better  when  it  is  known 
that  a  single  towboat  has  taken  a  load  of  coal  in 
barges  down  the  Ohio  River  which  could  not  be  put 
on  a  train  of  freight  cars  eleven  miles  long. 

With  the  completion  of  a  permanent  nine-foot 
stage  of  water,  by  means  of  locks  and  dams,  two  great 
changes  will  at  once  occur;  smaller  fleets  will  be  floated 
to  just  fit  the  locks,  and  the  supply  will  be  steady; 
manufacturing  plants  along  the  Ohio  will  not  have  to 
lay  in  a  supply  of  coal  at  the  moment  when  high  v/ater 
will  allow  it  to  be  brought  to  them,  whatever  the  price. 
This  will  result  in  a  great  advantage  to  the  manu- 
facturers of  the  valley.  Great  firms  with  their  own 
tows  and  towboats  will  secure  fuel  from  one  of  the 
many  inexhaustible  coal-fields  in  the  navigable  Ohio 
Basin  at  a  figure  marvellously  low ;  the  Ohio  costs  no 
right  of  way;  it  is  kept  in  repair  by  the  government; 
where  can  conditions  be  found  more  promising  for  a 
great  commercial  advance?  The  Age  of  the  Steel 
Barge  has  just  begun;  it  will  last  while  coal  remains 
the  fuel  of  our  manuf acturies ;  and  for  every  barge  of 
coal  there  will  be  another  barge  loaded  with  the 
manufactured  product  which  will  go  to  millions  of 
homes  at  the  same  remarkably  cheap  freight  rate. 
As  a  site  for  manufacturing  plants  the  Ohio  of  the 
Steel  Barge  Age  offers  an  opportunity  that  will  be 
quickly  seized. 


t/3 

1) 


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The  Workshop  of  the  World.  369 

With  the  new  era  will  come,  let  us  believe,  a  fresh 
patriotic  interest  in  the  marv^ellous  national  drama  that 
has  been  playing  in  this  winding  valley  since  C^loron's 
men-at-arms  buried  their  leaden  plates  beside  it  and 
shouted  their  echoing  Vive  le  Roi!  across  its  waters. 
Whatever  shall  be  the  advance  until  the  prophecy  that 
this  valley  becomes  the  "workshop  of  the  world"  is 
fulfilled,  the  fine  river  will  never  more  truly  be  "a 
course  of  empire"  than  it  was  in  those  simple  days 
when  the  boatman's  horn  was  luring  a  nation  westward 
along  the  bright,  clear  path  to  a  new  realm  richer  and 
dearer  than  any  India.  There  are  no  "Lachine 
Rapids"  in  the  Ohio  River — named  in  derision  of 
explorers  who  believed  the  stream  led  to  a  bright  land 
that  could  never  be  found !  In  the  commercial  awaken- 
ing of  the  twentieth  centur}^  this  river  will  probably 
play  the  part  it  played  in  that  of  the  nineteenth,  for  it 
leads  to  as  rich  and  free  a  portion  of  our  nation  as 
may  anywhere  be  found. 

The  heroism  of  the  old-time  actors  is  a  rich  heritage 
that  must  become  more  precious  if  patriotism  and  love 
of  country  are  to  wax  and  not  wane.  It  is  a  camp-fire 
legend  that  the  unwearied  Washington,  during  a  dark 
hour  in  the  Revolution,  pointed  to  the  Alleghanies  and 
asserted  that  if  the  British  should  conquer  American 
liberties  along  the  seaboard,  where  the  war  was  waging, 
he  would  lead  the  shattered  remnant  of  the  Conti- 
nentals beyond  those  rough  ridges  into  the  forest-land 
where  the  battles  of  his  boyhood  Vv'ere  fought,  and 
make  his  last  stand  for  the  Republic  there.  It  was 
not,  perhaps,  solely  because  of  the  inaccessibility  of 
the  region  that  led  the  man  to  dream  that  brave,  sad 
dream.     He  knew  the  strain  of  blood  that  was  hewing 


370 


The  Ohio  River 


away  those  western  woods, — that  no  truer  flowed  in 
mortal  veins. 

Our  task,  to-day,  is,  in  Lincoln's  beautiful,  immortal 
words,  to  be  rededicated,  in  order  that  those  who  lived 
and  builded  here  should  not  have  lived  and  built  in 
vain;  that,  with  all  the  blinding,  brilliant  commercial 
strides  as  the  Ohio  becomes  the  "workshop  of  the 
world,"  that  old-time  sense  of  individual  responsibility 
for  the  nation's  progress  should  not  perish  from  the 
long,  wind-swept  bottoms  of  the  Ohio  or  the  purple 
hills  that  sentinel  it. 


Index 


Adventure  Galley,  Ohio  Company's 

boat  christened  the,  170 
Allegheny  River,  width  of,  at  Pitts- 
burg (1750).  32 
Allen,  James  Lane,  quoted,  157 
Allequippe,  early  whistle  blown  on 

the,  349 
American  Cyclopedia,   cited,   290 
Amity,  schooner,  mentioned,    246, 

247 
Animals,  Ohio  forest,  72-75 
Antoinette,    Marie,    Marietta,     O., 

named  from,  170 
Armstrong,    Ensign,   drives   squat- 
ters out  of  Northwest  Territory, 

165 
Ashe,  Thomas,  Ohio  River  in  1806 

described  by,  250-261 
Atwater,  Caleb,  Tour,  cited,  320 
Audubon,   barge  sailing   described 

by,  238 


B 


Backus,  owner  of  Blennerhassett 
Island,  284 

Baker,  engineer  on  New  Orleans,  331 

Barker,  Col.  Jos.,  builds  Blenner- 
hassett's  house  286;  builds  Blen- 
nerhassett's  flotilla,  300,  302 

Barlow,  Joel,  agent  for  Scioto 
Company,  264 

Barr,  Samuel,  early  Pittsburg  cler- 
gyman, 105 

Barrier,  Caspar,  Greenbrier  pio- 
neer,   59 

Bayard,   Stephen,   mentioned,   235 

Beaujeu,  Capt.,  leads  force  against 
Braddock,   50 

Bedford,  Dr.,  early  Pittsburg  phy- 
sician,   105 

Belleville,  W.  Va.,  mentioned,  6; 
description  of  early  journey  from 
Wheeling  to,  by  land,  159-160 

Bells,  statistics  concerning  steam- 
boat, 354 

Ben  Sherrod,  account  of  the  burning 
of  the,  345-348 


Benham,  Capt.   Robert,  sufferings 

of,    126 
Berthoud,  James,  firm  founded  by, 

246 
Beverages,    names   for   fancy,    224 
Beverly,  Col.  William,  at  Treaty  of 

Lancaster,  29 
Birds,  Ohio  forest,  75-77 
"Black  forest  of  America,"   The, 

outlined,   69 
Blennerhassett,  Harman,  early  life, 

281-283;   purchases   and   names 

Isle    de    Beau,    284-288;    plans 

with   Burr,   289-298;  last  years, 

299-301 
Blennerhassett  Island,  early  names 

of,    285;   mentioned,    292    seq. 
Blennerhassett  Papers,  The,  cited, 

294 
Blue  Grass  Region  of  Kentucky,  The, 

Allen,  quoted,  157 
Bonnecamps,    Father,    memoir    of 

C^loron's  expedition,  quoted,  26, 

"Booked  for  Greenfield,"  origin  of 
expression,  223 

Boone,  Daniel,  opens  back  door  to 
Kentucky,  99 

Bouquet,  Col.  Henry,  serves  under 
Forbes,  55;  in  Pontiac's  Rebel- 
lion, 84 

Bower,  John,  letter  from  Ohio  flat- 
boat,  237 

Brackenridge,  Judge,  mentioned, 
105;  quoted,   106-107 

Braddock,  Gen.  Edward,  defeat  of, 
46-53  ;  grave  of,  54 

Brashears,  Marsham,  mentioned, 
272 

Broadhead,  Daniel,  first  dry  goods 
store  in  Louisville  opened  by,  273 

Brodhead,  Col.,  drives  squatters 
across  Ohio  River,  166 

Brownsville,  Pa.,  mentioned,  10, 
38,  84,   90 

Bryan,  Mr.  Guy,  Philadelphia  mer- 
chant,  mentioned,    106 

Bullitt,  Captain,  settles  Louisville, 
112 

Burr,  Aaron,  alleged  conspiracy  of, 
289  seq. 


371 


372 


Index 


Bush,  P.  S.,  account  of  trip  of  New 
Orleans,  332 

Butler,  Gen.  Richard,  mentioned, 
16,  165;  in  St.  Clair's  campaign, 
175-180 

Butterfield,  C.  W.,  History  of  the 
Girtys,  cited,  114;  The  Wash- 
ington-Crawford Correspondence, 
cited,  281 


Cairo,  111.,  mentioned,  367 
Campbell,  Col.  John,  tobacco  ware- 
house owned  by,  273 
"Campus    Martius,"    at    Marietta, 

170 
Carlisle,  John,  mentioned,  20 
Cassaday,    Ben,    History  of   Louis- 
ville, quoted,   214 
Catlettsburg,  Ky.,  mentioned,  160 
Cave-in-Rock,  legend  of,   196-198 
Celoron,  expedition  of,  18-25 
Centenary  of  Louisville,  The,  Dur- 

rett,  quoted,  270 
Chapman,  Nathaniel,  in  Ohio  Com- 
pany,  2 1 
Charley  Bowen,   civil  war  episode 

of,  323-327 

Chautauqua,  Lake,  Celoron  on,   23 

Chauteau,  Robert,  builder  of  the 
J.  M.  White,  339 

Chenowith,  Richard,  Louisville  pi- 
oneer, 269 

Christy,  William,  early  tavern  at 
Pittsburg,  85 

Cincinnati,  early  name  of,  171; 
trees  on  site  of,  186;  early  days 
in,  187-189;  Venable's  sketch  of 
growth    of,    189-194 

Cincinnati  and  Hamilton  County, 
O.,  Venable,  quoted,  189  seq. 

Cist's  Miscellanies,  quoted,  208 

Civil  War,  episode  of,  on  Ohio 
River,   323-327 

Clark,  George  Rogers,  on  Grave 
Creek  98 ;  with  Dunmore,  115;  Illi- 
nois campaign,  131-136;  Louis- 
ville residence,  270 

Clinton,  DeWitt,  incorporator  Ohio 
Steamboat  Navigation  Co.,  330 

Cole,  Frank  Theodore,  LL.B.,  men- 
tioned, 261 

Comet,  steamer,  mentioned,  333 

Confluence,  Pa.,  early  settlement 
of,    90 

Conkling,  Roscoe,  quoted  on  Ohio 
racial  stock,  321 


Connolly,  Dr.  John,  mentioned,  112; 

sketch  of,  272 
Contrecoeur,  builds  Fort  Duquesne, 

42 
Corn  Island,  see  Louisville,  Ky. 
Cornstalk,  defeat  of,  11 5-1 18;  mon- 
ument, view  of,  120 
Covington,  Ky.,  surveyed,  160 
Craik,  Dr.  William,  mentioned,  92 
Cramer,    Zadock,    The    Navigator, 

quoted,  330 
Crawford,    William,    surveys    land 

for  George  Washington,  86 
Cresap,  Captain  George,  accused  of 

Logan  murder,   113 
Cresap,    Thomas,    agent    of    Ohio 

Company,  20,  37 
Crist,  Henry,  in  river  fight,  152 
Croghan,    George,    mentioned,  32, 

91 
Cull,  James,  Greenbrier  pioneer,  59 
Cutler,  Ephraim,  mentioned,  8 
Cutler,    Dr.    Manasseh,    agent    of 

Ohio  Company,  169 


D 


Day,  Sherman,  quoted  on  early 
Pittsburg,  106 

"  Deckeneering, "  evolution  of 
steamboat,  354 

Decoys,  Indian's  use  of,  141 

Devol,  Capt.  Jonathan,  ode  to  Com- 
modore Whipple,  242 

Deval,  Stephen,  first  ocean-rigged 
vessel  on  Ohio  River  built  by,  241 

Dexter,  Henry  T.,  war  episode  of, 
323-327 

Dinwiddie,    Governor,    mentioned, 

37.  41 
Disasters,  accounts  of  famous  steam- 
boat, 343-348 
Dorcas  and  Sally,  schooner,  247 
Downing,     Col.     Timothy,     escape 

from   Shawanese,    144 
Drake,   Daniel,  quoted,   188 
Draper,    Mrs.  George,  capture  of, 

59 
Draper's    Meadows,    early    settle- 
ment of,  58 
Duels,  various  kinds  of  early,  222 
Duer,    Col.    William,    promoter   of 

Scioto  Company,   169 
Dunbar's  Spring,  located,  44 
Dunmore's  War,  account  of,  114- 

119 
Durrett,  Reuben  T.,  quoted,  270 


Index 


373 


E 


East  Liverpool,  O.,  commercial 
prospects  of,  366 

Eliza  Green,  ship,  247 

Elizabeth,  Pa.,  boatyard  at,  ad- 
vertised,   234 

Emerson,  John,  an  Ohio  squatter, 
167 

England,  Ohio  claims,  18;  wins  Old 
French  War,  15-56 

Enterprise,  steamer,  mentioned,  2i?,2> 

Evansville,    Ind.,    mentioned,    10, 

367 

F 

Fairfax,  George,  in  Ohio  Company, 

21 
Faith,  William,  Louisville  pioneer, 

269 
"Falls  of  Ohio",   Ashe  describes, 

265-269;  view  of,  268 
Fanny  Buillit,  steamer,  323 
"Farmer's  Library,  The,  first  Louis- 
ville paper,  274 
Person,  Sally,  diary  of,  quoted,  261 
Fink,  Mike,  anecdotes  of,  211-216 
Fish,   Ohio  River,  mentioned,   94, 

104 
Flatboats,     descriptions     of,     139, 

232-240,  255 
Floyd,  John,  mentioned,  272 
FoUansbee,  mentioned,  366 
Forbes,  Gen.  John,  captures  Fort 

Duquesne,  55 
Forbes,     Thomas,    describes    Fort 

Duquesne,  42 
Forts:  Cumberland,  48-49;  Du- 
quesne, 42,  55;  Fayette  (Pitts- 
burg) ,  106 ;  Fincastle,  112;  Finney 
270;  Frontenac,  22;  Harmar,  158, 
167,  172;  Henry,  103,  112,  121; 
Knox,  175;  La  Boeuf,  36,  39; 
Miami,  33,  165;  Massac  160;  Mc- 
intosh, 103,  125;  Necessity,  43- 
46;  Nelson,  270;  Niagara,  23; 
Randolph,  125;  Recovery,  179; 
Sackville,  136;  Stanwix,  91; 
Steuben,  175;  Washington,  174 
seq. 
Francis,  Mr.  Tench,  lays  out  Manor 

of  Pittsburg,   100 
Frazier,     Washington     aided     by 

trader,  38,  41;  mentioned,  85 
French  enter  Ohio  Basin,  35 
French  and  Indian  War,  see  Old 
French  War 


"French  Grant,"  Congress  creates, 

265 
Frontier     Forts     of     Pennsylvania, 

cited,  42 
Fry,    Col.   Joshua,   in   Old   French 

War,  42,  43  ^^. 

Fulton,  Robert,  incorporator  Ohio 

Steamboat  Navigation  Co.,  330 


Gabault,  Father,  opens  Vincennes 
to  Clark,  134 

Gallipolis,  Ohio,  sketch  of,  263-265; 
view   of,    264 

Gambling,  an  anecdote  of  steam- 
boat,  355-357 

Gibbens,  Alvaro  F.,  Historic  Blen- 
nerhassett  Island  Home,  cited,  285 

Gist,  Christopher,  exploration  of, 
30;  first  settled  Monongahela 
County,  83 

Gordon,   Capt.   Harry,  mentioned, 

92 
Gouging,    description     of  old-time, 

209 
Great    Kanawha,    Washington    at 

mouth  of,  95 
Great  Meadows,  battle  of,  43-46 
Greathouse,  murder  committed  by, 

113 
Greenbrier  Company,  grant  made 

to,  5  7 
Greenup,  survey  of,  160 
Gyles,  Jacob,  in  Ohio  Company,  21 

H 

Haglin's  Town,  O.,  see  Mercer's 
Town 

Hale,  John  P.,  Trans- Allegheny 
Pioneers,  cited,  60 

Half  King,  befriends  EngHsh,  39, 
44;  death,  47 

Hall,  Joseph,  issues  newspaper  in 
Pittsburg,   105 

Hamilton,  Gov.,  captured  by  Clark 
at  Vincennes,   135 

Hamilton  John,  C,  hung  for  mur- 
der, 199-200 

H  anbury,  John,  promotes  Ohio 
Company,   20 

Hanna,  Charles  A.,  Historical  Col- 
lections of  Harrison  County,  Ohio, 
cited,  166 

Harmar,  Gen.  Josiah,  early  ser- 
vices of,  165;  defeat  of,   174 

Harpes,  Micajah  and  Wiley,  last 
crime   of,    200-205 


374 


Index 


Harris,  Mary,  mentioned,  88 
Harris,  Thaddeus,  quoted,   247 
Harrod,  James,  settles  Kentucky, 

99 
Heckewelder,      John,      on       name 

"Ohio,  "3. 

Helm,  Lieut.  Leonard,  at  Vincen- 
nes,  134 

Henderson,  Ky.,  laid  out,  160 

Hines,  Andrew,  mentioned,  272 

Hinsdale,  B.  A.,  The  Old  North- 
west,  quoted,    168,169 

Historic  Blennerhassett  Island  Home 
Gibbons,  cited,   285 

Historic  Highways  of  America, 
Hulbert,  cited,  160. 

Historical  Collections  of  Harrison 
Co.,  Ohio,  Hanna,  cited,  166 

"Hobson's  Choice,"  Wayne's  camp 
at,  184 

Hope  Distillery,  founded  by  Yan- 
kees at  Louisville,  275 

Hubbell,  Capt.  William,  in  river 
fight,  144 

Hulbert,  A.  B.,  Historic  Highways 
of  America,  cited,  160;  Washing- 
ton and  the  West,  cited,  86 

"Hunters  of  Kentucky,  The,"  anec- 
dote of  song,  217 

Huntington,  W.  Va.,  mentioned, 
366 

Hurricane  Island,  mentioned.    245 


Illinois,  Clark's  capture  of,   131-136 
Improvement,  sketch  of  Ohio  River, 

361-365 
Indian,  logic  of,  warfare,  128-130; 

138,  149 
Indian  War   (1791)    172-185 
Indians,  Ohio  Valley  seats  of,  24, 

28,  33 ;  number  of  in  Ohio  Basin, 

28;  Washington  describes   Ohio 

River,  96-97 
Indiana,  ship,  247 
Ingles,  Mary,  story  of,  58-68 
"Isle   de    Beau,"  Blennerhassett' s 

name  for  Blennerhassett  Island, 

28s 


/.  M.  White,  record  run  of  the,  339 
■  Jack,  Andrew,  pilot  of  the  New  Or- 
leans, 331 
Jefferson,  Thomas,  version  of  Lo- 
gan's "speech,'!  113 


Johnson,  Sir.  William,  estimate  of 
number  of  Western  Indians, 
(1763),  28;  mentioned,  46 

Joncaire,  George  Washington  meets, 

39 
Jumonville's  grave,  mentioned,  44; 
view  of,  46 

K 

Kalm's  Reisen,  quoted,    79,  loi 
Kaskaskia,  111.,  Clark  captures,  134 
Keelboats,  descriptions  of,  139,  22S; 

first  line  of,  on  Ohio,  230 
Kentucky,     early     settlement     of, 

91-99,    158;  desired  government 

protection,   173 
King,  William,  designer  of   the  /. 

M.  White,  339 
Kirtland,  Samuel,  mentioned,   183 
Kiyashuta,       Washington      meets 

Chief,  95 


La  Salle,  discoverer  of  Ohio,  18 

Lambert,  John  A.,  mentioned,  339 

Lancaster,  Pa.,  Virginia's  treaty 
with  Six  Nations  at,  29 

Latter  Days  of  the  Blennerhassetts, 
The,  cited,  288 

Launching,  description  of  an  old- 
time,  342 

Lee,  Arthur,  describes  early  Pitts- 
burg, 100 

Lee,  Thomas,  mentioned,  20,  29 

Legardeur  de  St.  Pierre,  commands 
Fort  La  Boeuf,  39,  40 

Lempke,  Capt.  J.  A.,  Story  of  the 
Charley   Bowen,"    323-327 

Lenard,  Henry,  Greenbrier  pioneer, 

59  ,       , 

Lewis,  Gen.  Andrew,  wins  battle  of 

Point  Pleasant,   11 4-1 19 
Lexington,  early  whistle  blown  on 

the,  349  _ 
Life  and  Times  of  Aaron  Burr,  The, 

Parton,  cited,  290 
Light,  Daniel,  in  river  fight,   145 
Limestone,    Ky.,   see   Maysville 
Lippincott's  Magazine,  cited,  288 
Little  Turtle,  defeats  St.  Clair,  180 

seq 
Livingston,  Edward,  unsuccessfully 

prosecutes    Shreve    for   infringe- 
ment,  335 
Livingston,  Robert  R.,  incorporator 

Ohio  Steamboat  Navigation  Co., 

330 


Index 


375 


Lloyd,  James  T.,  Steamboat  Direc- 
tory   and    Disasters    on    Western 
Waters,    quoted,    343 
Logan,  alleged  speech  of,  113 
Logstown,  mentioned,  25,  85,  93 
Losantiville,  Cincinnati  first  named, 

Lotnsiana,  ship,  246 

Louisville,  Ky.,  early  settlement  of, 

269-274;    growth    of,     274-277; 

canal    at,    see    Portland    Canal; 

unhealthy  site  of,  271;  increase  of 

population,  and  wealth  of,  276 
Louisville  Gazette,  The,  mentioned, 

274 
Loyal  Company,  grant  made  to,  57 
"Loyal  Foresters,"  mentioned,  272 
Ludlow,  N.M.,  Dramatic  Life  as  I 

Found  It,  quoted,  207 

M 
Madison,  Ind.,  mentioned,   10 
Marietta,  Ohio,  settlement  of,  170 
Marietta,  brig,  247 
Marietta    College,    mentioned, 
Martin's  Ferry,  Ohio,  early  settlers 

at,   165,  166 
Mary  Avery,  brig,   247 
Mason,   Capt.   Samuel,  mentioned, 

121 
May,  John,  last  fight  of,  141 
Maynard,     Peter,     Pittsburg     fur 

trader,    106 
Maysville,  Ky.,  mentioned,  10,  141, 

158 
Menzons,  Jonas,  an  Ohio  squatter, 

166 
Mercer's   Town,    O.,    squatter   set- 
tlement, 165,  166 
Meriwether,  George,  mentioned 
Metropolis,   111.,   mentioned,    160 
Mock  fight,  roadbuilders  engage  in, 

220 
"Monongahela     Country,"     region 

known  as,  81 ;  early  settlement  of, 

89,  Q2 
Monongahela  Farmer,  famous  trip 

of  the,  243 
Montour,   33,  35 
Moore,     Charles,     The     Northwest 

Under  Three  Flags,  cited,   114 
Morgan,  Col.,  advises  President  Jef- 

erson  of   Burr's  western  scheme, 

299,  301 
Morrison,    William,    Pittsburg    fur 

trader,  106 
Moselle,    account    of    explosion    of 

the,  344 


Moundbuilding  Indians,  few  works 
of,  near  Ohio  River,  9 

Moundsville,  W.  Va.,  Geo.  Rogers 
Clark's  claim  at,  98 

"  Mud  Garrison,  "  on  Salt  River,  152 

Aluskingutn,  ship,  247 

Myers,  Jacob,  founder  of  packet 
line,  230 

McClure,  Rev.  David,  quoted  on 
Ohio  forests,  71,  73 

Mcintosh,  Gen.  Lachlan,  erects 
Fort  Mcintosh,  125 

McKee,  Alexander,  Pittsburg  pi- 
oneer,   85 

McManness,  John,  Louisville  pi- 
oneer,  269 

McMurtrie,  Dr.,  quoted,  271 

N 

Neal,  Capt.  J.  S.,  account  of  whistle 
blowing  on  the  Revenue,  349 

Nanina,  brig,  246 

National  road,  mentioned,  8; 
aligns  Braddock's  Road,    49 

Natural  selection  in  Old  Northwest, 
320,  321 

Navigation,  difficulties  of  early 
Ohio,  Ashe  on,  250-261;  enumer- 
ated, 343 

Navigator,  The,  Cramer,  quoted, 
320 

Naylor,  R.  B.,  on  commercial 
future  of  Ohio  Valley,  365-367 

Neville  and  Robinson,  account  of 
militia  plundering  Blennerhas- 
sett's  home,  304,  305 

New  Cumberland,  mentioned,  366 

New  Martinsville,   mentioned,  366 

New  Orleans,  first  steamboat  to  sail 

on  Ohio,  32iT--2,2,3 
New  Orleans,  Ode  on  the  Battle  of, 

218 
Nimmo,  William,  mentioned,  20 
Noah's  Ark,  perfect  dimensions  of 

steamer,  349 
Norris's  Town,   O.,  early  squatter 

settlement,  165 


O 


Ogle,  Capt   Joseph,  mentioned,  121 

"Ohio,"  early  geographical  use  of, 
70 

Ohio,  early  appearance  of,  16,  17,  26 

Ohio  Company,  21 

Ohio  Company  of  Associates,  suc- 
cess of.   168-170 


Z1^ 


Index 


Ohio  forest,    description   of  early, 
69-79 

Ohio  Gazette,  The,  Blennerhassett's 
articles  in,  209 

Ohio  River,  national  importance  of, 
I ;  meaning  of  name,  2  ;  Hecke- 
welder  on  name,  3 ;  three  ages  of, 
6-8 ;  Indian  seats  not  on,  9 ;  con- 
flict of  France  and  England  for, 
15-56;  early  condition  of,  15-17, 
69-79;  C^loron  on,  18-27;  early 
descriptions  of,  27,  31,  96-98, 
250-261 ;  Washington  on,  38,  96- 
98;  Fort  Duquesne  erected  on, 
42 ;  Braddock  defeated  near,  50- 
55;  Forbes  reaches,  55-56;  Mary 
Ingles  on,  61-67;  first  settle- 
ments along,  83-92,  98-100, 
120-121,  157-161;  eastern  routes 
to,  83 ;  Washington  describes 
land  on,  97;  in  Revolutionary 
struggle,  112-136;  George  Rogers 
Clark  on,  131-133;  accounts  of 
Indian  fighting  on,  137-157; 
description  of  forests  beside  of 
(1796))  159-160;  squatters  cross, 
163-167;  Ohio  Company  pur- 
chases land  on,  168-170;  Judge 
Symmes  purchases  land  on,  170- 
171;  highwaymen  on,  196-198; 
rowdyism  along,  207-216,  221- 
223;  early  craft  on,  227-230;  first 
packet  line  on,  230;  first  trading 
voyage  beyond  Falls  of,  231; 
first  keelboat  firm  on,  231;  barges 
and  flatboats  on,  231-240;  an  old 
boatyard  on,  234;  armed  galleys 
on,  240;  early  brig  building  on, 
241-248;  first  ocean-rigged  vessel 
to  sail,  241,  243;  description  of 
dangers  of  navigation  of,  250- 
261;  early  cargoes  on,  275;  Burr 
on,  292;  as  projection  of  Mason 
and  Dixon's  line,  319-321;  first 
steamboats  on,  330-338;  early 
steamboat  launching  on,  342; 
steamboat  disasters  on,  344-348; 
description  of  princely  steamers 
on,  350-353  ;  steamboat  gambling 
on,  3  5 5-3 5 7  ;  early  attempts  to  im- 
prove navigation  of,  361-365 
U.  S.  Government  improvement, 
365 ;  Naylor  on  commercial  future 

of,  365-367 
Ohio    Steamboat    Navigation    Co., 

organization  of,  330 
Ohio     Valley     Historical     Society, 

mentioned,  365 


Ohio  Valley  Improvement  Associa- 
tion, mentioned,  359 

Old  French  War,  35-57 

On  the  Storied  Ohio,  Thwaites, 
quoted,  98,  123 

Outlaws  in  the  Ohio  Valley,  ac- 
counts of,   195-207 

Owensboro,  laid  out,  1 60 


Paducah,  survey  of,  160;  civil  war 
episode  at,  325  seq.;  mentioned, 
367 

"Pan  Handle,"  early  historical  im- 
portance of,    89 

Parkersburg,  W.  Va.,  mentioned, 
301,  302, 366 

Parsons,  Samuel  Holden,  men- 
tioned, 170 

Parton,  James,  The  Life  and  Times 
of  Aaron  Burr,  cited,  290 

Patton,  Capt.  James,  early  Louis- 
ville pilot,  269,  273 

Patton,  Col.  James,  Greenbrier 
pioneer,  59 

Pierce,    Capt.    Joseph,    mentioned, 

^.235 

Pioneers,    character   of    Ohio,     88; 

thriftless,  78 
Pitt,  William,  mentioned,  54 
Pittsburg     (see     Fort    Duquesne), 

cosmopolitan  nature  of,  81 ;  early 

history  of,  99-106 
Pittsburg,  ship,  mentioned,  246 
Plascut,  William,  in  river  fight,  145 
Plates,    sites   of   C^loron's    leaden, 

22-24 
Plug,  Colonel,  mentioned,  13 
Plummer,    Jonathan,    pioneer    tea 

maker,    7  7 
Point  Pleasant,  battle  of,  11 5-1 18 
Pontiac's  Rebellion,  mentioned,  84 
Pope,  William,  mentioned,  272 
Portland,  N.  Y.,  Cdloron  at,  23 
Portland  Canal,  history  of,  276-279 
Portsmouth,  O.,  mentioned,  9,  33, 

65.   367 

Pownall's  map,  cited,  70 

President  Adams,  armed  galley, 
named,  241 

Proclamation  of  1764,  Washing- 
ton's opinion  of,  86 

Putnam,  A.  W.,  Mrs.  Blennerhas- 
sett  escapes  in  boat  secured  from, 

SOS- 
Putnam,   Gen.   Rufus,   services  of, 

168,  183 


Index 


377 


Querist,"    Blennerhassett's    non- 
de-plume,  299 


Rattle,  Mr.  James,  earlly  Pittsburg 
merchant,  106 

Redstone,  Old  Fort,  mentioned,  38. 
84,  90 

Reeder,  Mrs.  Rebecca,  quoted,  186 

Reynolds,  Gov.,  on  early  Illinois 
rowdyism,  222 

Rivalry,  between  Old  Southwest 
and  Old  Northwest,  328-329 

Rowdyism,  type  of  early  Ohio 
Valley,  206-225 

Rogers,  Col.  David,  defeat  of,  126 

Roosevelt,  Nicholas  J.,  incorpora- 
tor of  Ohio  Steamboat  Naviga- 
tion Co.,  330;  piloted  first  steam- 
down  Ohio,  331 

Roosevelt,  Theodore,  account  of 
battle  of  Point  Pleasant,  115- 
118;  on  western  immigration, 
statistics,  158 

Rowan,  John,    heroism   of   mother 

of,   155 
Ruby,    John    B.,    account    of    the 
Harpe  tragedy,  202  seq. 


Papers,  cited,  167 
Smithland,  mentioned,  160 
Spears,  Solomon,  in  river  fight,  152 
Spragiie,  a  modern  tow-boat,  367 
Squatters  on  Northwest  Territory, 

165-167 
Squirrels,  vast  numbers  killed,  79 
St.  Clair  Papers,  Smith,  cited,  167 
St.  Clair,  Gen.  Arthur,  inaugurated 
Governor  of  Northwest  Territory, 
170;  defeat  of,  175-182 
St.  Clair,  first    ocean-rigged  vessel 

on  Ohio  named,  241 
Star  Spangled  Banner,  dimensions 

of  steamer,  352 
Steamboats,  improvement  of  Ohio 

River,  336-338 
Steele,    Rev.   John,   mentioned,   91 
Steubenville,    O.,    commercial    im- 
portance, 366;  see  Fort  Steuben 
Seven  Ranges,  mentioned,  168,  169 
Stigall,    Moses,   part  of,   in   Harpe 

murder,   201 
Sullivan,  James,  mentioned,  272 
Sultana,   anecdote  of  gambling  on 

the  steamer,  355-357 
Swedish  Academy  Transactions,  cit- 
ed, 77 
Symmes,  Judge,  promoter  of  Sym- 
mes  Purchase,   170 


Sanderson,  Dr.  John  P.,  murder  of, 

199-200 
Safford,  William  H.,   The  Blenner- 
hassett  Papers,  quoted,  294,  297 
Sanders,    John,    store    in    fiatboat 

kept  by,  273 
Scull,    John,    issues    newspaper    in 

Pittsburg,  105 
Senator  Ross,  armed  galley  named, 

241 
Shannopin's  Town,  C^loron  at,  25 
Shawneetown,   111.,    mentioned,    10 
Shepard,    David,   mentioned,    121 
Shipbuilding,  Harris  on  early,  247 
Shopf,  Johann  D.,  describes  early 

Ohio  forests,  76 
Shreve,  Capt.  Henry  M.,  builder  of 
steamer     Washington,    334;   pro- 
secuted by  Robert  Fulton,  335 
Sistersville,  W.  Va.,  mentioned,  366 
Six  Nations,  at  Lancaster  treaty,  29 
Slaughter,  George,  mentioned,  272 
Smith,  James,  on  methods  of  Indian 

fighting,  130 
Smith,   William    Henry,    St.    Clair 


Tarascon,     Louis     Anastius,     firm 

founded  by,   246 
Tardiveau,  keelboat  line  established 

by  Messrs.,  231 
Taylor,  Hancock,earlyvoyageof,23 1 
Taylor,  Col.  Richard,  early  voyage 

of,  231 
Territory  Northwest  of  Ohio  River, 

establishment  of,  16S-170 
Tewell,    John,    Louisville    pioneer, 

269 
Thornton,  Col.  William,  mentioned, 

20 
Thwaites,     Reuben    Gold,    On    the 

Storied  Ohio,  98;  quoted,   123 
Trans-Allegheny     Pioneers,      Hale, 

cited,   60 
Trent,  Capt.  William,  begins  a  fort 

on  Ohio,  41 
Trigg,   Stephen,   mentioned,   272 
Todd,  John,  mentioned,  272 
Tompkins,  Daniel  D.,  incorporator 

of    Ohio    steamboat    Navigation 

Co..  330 
"  Turkeyfoot, "  see  Confluence,  Pa. 


378 


Index 


u 


Underwood,  Hon.  Joseph  R.,  ac- 
count of  the  last  fight  of  the 
Harpes,  202  seq. 


Vail,  Samuel,  first  Louisville  paper 

established  by,  274 
Vanceburg,  mentioned,   160 
Varnum,  James  M.,  mentioned,  170 
Venable,  W.  H.,  quoted,  189  seq. 
Vesuvius,  steamer,  mentioned,  333 
Vickroy,  Thomas,  assists  laying  out 

Pittsburg,   100 
Vilhers,  Le  Grand,  entraps  Wash- 
ington at  Great  Meadows,  45 
Vincennes,    Ind.,    Clark    captures, 
135 

W 

Wabash,  Battle  of  the,  175-182 
Walker,  Mr.  John,  pilot,  243-245 
Walker,  Samuel,  mentioned,  339 
Walker's  Bar,  mentioned,  245 
Ward,  Capt.  James,  in  river  fight, 

150 

Warren,  Pa.,  Celoron  at,  23 

Washington,  Augustus,  mentioned, 
21 

Washington-Crawford  Correspond- 
ence,  The,  Butterfield,  cited,  281 

Washington,  doubting  public  re- 
assured by  trip  of  the  steamer, 

Washington  and  the  West,  Hulbert, 
cited,    86 

Washington,  George,  trip  to  Alle- 
gheny, 37;  Fort  Necessity  cam- 
paign,   43 

Washington,  George,  secures  land 
on  the  Ohio,  86;  journey  down 
the  Ohio  in  1770,  92-98 

Washington,  Lawrence,  mentioned, 
20 

Watertown,  Pa.,  see  Fort  La  Boeuf 

Watterson,  Henry,  quoted  on  "  New 
England  in  Ohio,"   328 

Wayne,  Gen.  Anthony,  campaign 
of,   183-186 

Wellsburg,  O.,  mentioned,  366 

Western  Monthly  Review,  quoted, 
214 

Western  Review,  quoted  on  Indian 
fight,  145-149 


Western  Trader,  ship,  246 

Wheeling,  first  settled,  98,  112;  at- 
tacks on,  121-125  ;  early  squatter 
settlement  opposite,  165,  166; 
commerce  of,  366 

Whipple,  Commodore  Abraham, 
first  ocean  -  rigged  Ohio  vessel 
piloted  by,  241 

Whiskey,  beneficial  effect  of,  236 

Whittlesey,  W.  A.,  Fugitive  Essays, 
cited,  114;  quoted,  320 

Wilderness  Road  to  Kentucky,  131; 
rivalry  of  Ohio  River  with,  as 
pioneer  route  to  the  West,  157 

Wilkinson,  Gen.  James,  connection 
with  Burr's  conspiracy.  290  seq. 

Willing,  The,  in  Illinois  cam- 
paign, 135 

Winning  of  the  West,  Roosevelt, 
cited,   115-118 

Woodbridge,  Dudley,  294; — Maria 
P.,  quoted,  288 

Woodrop,  James,  in  Ohio  Com- 
pany, 21 

Woods,  George,  lays  out  Pittsburg, 
100 

Woods,  John,  early  Pittsburg  law- 
yer, 105 

Woodworth,  Samuel,  mentioned, 
217 

"Workshop  of  the  World,"  And- 
rew Carnegie  calls  the  Ohio 
Valley    the,    365 

Wylie,  Editor,  author  of  Elizabeth 
Herald  Boat-Building  Centennial 
Edition,  339 


"Yankee  tricks,"  315 

Yellow   Creek,    O.,   early   squatter 

settlement  on,  165 
Yoder,  Capt.  Jacob,  first  flatboat 

piloted  by,  235 
Yorktown,  dimensions  of  steamer, 

350-351 


Zane,     Colonel    Ebenezer,    founds 

Wheeling,  98;  mentioned,   123 
Zane,  EUzabeth,    heroism   of,  124- 

125 
Zeisberger,  David,  on  name  "  Ohio", 
2 


Cnp,r,ehi  1906  -f  G  P.  Pulnam'i   Sunt..  N. 


The  Romance  of  the 
Colorado   River    :    :    : 

A  Complete  Account  of  the  Discovery  and  of  the 
Explorations  from  1540  to  the  Present  Time^ 
with  Particular  Reference  to  the  two  Voyages  of 
Powell  through  the  Line  of  the  Great  Canyons 

By  Frederick  S.  Dellenbaugh 

<?",  with  200  Illustrations,  net,  $3.50,     By  mail,  $3.75 


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almost  every  page,  and  while  the  text  is  always  clear,  these  pictures 
give,  from  a  single  glance,  an  idea  of  the  vastness  of  the  canyons  and 
their  remarkable  formation,  which  it  would  be  beyond  the  power  of 
pen  to  describe.  And  the  color  reproduction  of  the  water-color  draw- 
ing that  Thomas  Moran  made  of  the  entrance  to  Bright  Angel  Trail 
gives  some  faint  idea  of  the  glories  of  color  which  have  made  the 
Grand  Canyon  the  wonder  and  the  admiration  of  the  world." — The 
Cleveland  Leader. 

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V 


The  Connecticut    River 

and  the  Valley  of  the  Connecticut  :   : 

Three  Hundred  and  Fifty  Miles 
from  Mountain  to  Sea    : 

By  Edwin  Munroe  Bacon 

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"  Literary  Pilgrimages  in  New  England,"  etc. 

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THE  Connecticut  River  may  perhaps  with  more 
propriety  than  any  other  in  the  world  be 
named  the  Beautiful  River.  From  Stuart 
to  the  Sound  it  uniformly  maintains  this  character. 
The  purity,  salubrity,  and  sweetness  of  its  waters; 
the  frequency  and  elegance  of  its  meanders;  its  ab- 
solute freedom  from  all  aquatic  vegetables;  the  un- 
common and  universal  beauty  of  its  banks,  here  a 
smooth  and  winding  beach,  there  covered  with  rich 
verdure,  now  fringed  with  bushes,  now  covered  with 
lofty  trees,  and  now  formed  by  the  intruding  hill,  the 
rude  blufiE,  and  the  shaggy  mountain, — are  objects 
which  no  traveller  can  thoroughly  describe,  and  no 
reader  can  adequately  imagine. 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S   SONS 

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The  St  Lawrence  River 

Historical        Legendary        Picturesque 


By  George  Waldo  Browne 

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WHILE  the  St.  Lawrence  River  has  been  the 
scene  of  many  important  events  connected 
with  the  discovery  and  development  of  a 
large  portion  of  North  America,  no  attempt  has  here- 
tofore been  made  to  collect  and  embody  in  one  volume 
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The  Hudson  ^\n^x  from 
Ocean  to  Source  :  :  :  *  : 


Historical        Legendary         Picturesque 


By  Edgar  Mayhew  Bacon 

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NO  stream  in  America  is  so  rich  in  legends  and 
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ocean  to  source  every  mile  of  it  is  crowded 
with  reminders  of  the  early  explorers,  of  the  Indian  wars, 
of  the  struggle  of  the  colonies,  and  of  the  quaint,  peace- 
ful village  existence  along  its  banks  in  the  early  days  of 
the  Republic.  Before  the  explorers  came,  the  river 
figured  to  a  great  extent  in  the  legendary  history  of  the 
Indian  tribes  of  the  East.  Mr.  Bacon  is  well  equipped 
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Breaking  the  Wilderness 

The  story  of  the  Conquest  of  the  Far  West,  from 
the  Wanderi7igs  of  Cabeza  de  Vaca  to  the  first 
Descent  of  the  Colorado  by  Powell,  and  the  Com- 
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By  Frederick  S.  Dellenbaugh 

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THE   MOHAWn 
VALLEY 

Its  I^e^ends  and  its  History 

By  W.  Max  Reid.  With  Seventy  Full-page  Il- 
lustrations from  Photographs  by  J.  Arthur 
Maney.   8°.    (By  mail,  $3.80.)    .    .    Net  $2.50 

There  is  no  section  of  pleasant  valley-land,  of  lake- 
and  forest-dotted  wilderness,  of  rushing  streams  and  cul- 
tivated fields,  east  of  the  Mississippi,  that  surpasses  in 
its  wealth  of  scenery  that  bit  of  the  Empire  State  known 
as  the  Mohawk  Valley.  It  is  natural  that  such  a  land 
should  be  rich  in  romance,  both  legendary  and  historical. 
From  Schenectady  to  Rome,  every  town  has  its  romantic 
story  of  the  French  Wars  or  the  Revolution,  every  bit  of 
woodland  has  its  wealth  of  pre-historic  legend. 

Many  characters  of  national  interest  figure  prom- 
inently in  this  record  of  the  Mohawk  Valley,  while  war- 
like Indians,  black-robed  Jesuits,  French  officers,  and 
early  English  settlers  —  the  picturesque  population  of 
the  Valley  a  century  ago — live  again  in  its  pages.  Pho- 
tographs and  sketches  of  persons,  places,  and  events 
profusely  illustrate  the  volume  and  aid  the  imagination 
of  the  reader  who  knows  and  loves  the  Valley  of  to- 
day. 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

Ne-w  "YorK  I^ondon 


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UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS-URBANA 

917.'7H87         „  ^,^       C002 
THE  OHIO  RIVER;  NY 


3  0112025336162 


